Our Specialist Day Camps
Northwood
Our camps are structured by Vanessa McSween. A Design, Technology and Engineering specialist, with over 27 years of experience of teaching children of all ages and a wide range of subjects. She believes strongly in hands on, engaging learning and is passionate about the importance of STEM in preparing our young people for life in a modern and developing world.
We have a friendly team of teachers and assistants who know that to get the best out of the children, they have to be happy, safe and confident to have a go, even if things do not go according to plan the first or tenth time. Pastoral care is important to us.
In addition to our dedicated teaching staff, we have a huge number of young people who are passionate about STEM Den. They have loved coming to classes when they were younger and now want to share their expertise by supporting our classes as volunteers. We are hugely grateful for the time, inspiration and confidence they give as they support us.
We are Ofsted registered and were last inspected in December 2023. All our staff are DBS checked. We comply fully to standards for First Aid Training. All our staff are safeguarding trained.
Week 1
Monday 14 July - ‘I like to ride my bicycle’
Tour De France Sphero Bolt STEAM challenge. Build your own vehicle using recycled materials, race your cyclist against others by coding a Sphero Bolt to be your engine and driving force.
Design and make challenge for cycling.
Learn about the Science around air resistance and cycling. Option to bring your bike in to cycle around the grounds at playtimes. KS1 and KS2 children are taught in different groups.
Tuesday 15 July - ‘Music Festival’
Music festival inspired STEAM challenge. Build your own stage and props then code your Sphero Bolt and or Crumble to dance and light up to music you create using Ipads. Children from all ages work together in groups.
Wednesday 16 July - ‘Ocean Clean Up’
Learn about Boylan Slat and his mission to rid the oceans and rivers of plastic pollution. KS2/3 - Ocean clean up STEAM challenge inspired by the Global Climate and Health Summit. Build your own ocean clean up machine and test it out on water using a Sphero Bolt as your engine. KS1 - Science and design and make challenges around water play and boats.
Thursday 17 July - ‘All about me!’
KS2/3 - Human Body inspired STEAM activities including planning and executing your own reaction times investigation. KS1 - Shorter, teacher led human body inspired challenges
learn of artist Julian Opie and create your own tote bag to take away using an app called Procreate for digital design.
Friday 18 July - ‘Brilliant Birds’
Learn and share information about how wonderful birds are and how their adaptations have helped them to survive. Take on an activity which teaches the fundamentals of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection. Make your own bird feeder to take home. A look closer at feathers and what happens to sea birds when an oil spill takes place.
Week 2
Monday 21st July - ‘Bridges to Prosperity’
Learn about the work being done by engineers such as Avery Bang to build bridges in a physical sense and metaphorical sense all around the world. Children will work in teams to build bridges of different types, learning about the forces of tension and compression as they go. Find out more about the wonderful work: https://bridgestoprosperity.org/
Tuesday 22nd July - ‘Bath Bombs’
Have fun with science based activities and investigations using ‘fizz’. Make your own bath bombs and packaging to take home.
Wednesday 23rd July - ‘Spooky Portraits’
Work as part of a team to make your own spooky moving portraits like the ones in the Harry Potter movie. Use Crumble programming and some clever knowledge about linkages to learn how to make the characters move. Record your own scene from a movie using IPads.
Thursday 24th July - ‘Bees are friends’
Our expert bee keeper, Mrs Telfer is back again in person (by very popular demand) to teach us all about the wonder of bees. Take part in STEAM related bee activities including making wax candles and model bees to take home. Walk the school grounds to see St John’s bee hives and to watch the bees in action.
Friday 25th July - ‘Sending out an SOS to the world’
Learn about communication through the ages on a whistle stop tour. Activities include making a morse code machine to take home, deciphering codes as we learn about the Enigma code breaking machine and listening to the story of Louis Braille and have a go at writing and reading braille.
Week 3
Monday 28 July - ‘Let it Grow’
A whole day inspired by plants and gardens. Learn about pollination, carry out a biodiversity study within the school grounds comparing different areas. Look at some of the show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show before designing and making your own model garden to take home.
Tuesday 29 July - ‘If you go into the woods today’
A nature inspired day of two halves. Design and sublimation print your own cotton pencil case to take home. Build your own mini log cabin to take home or den in the woods. Nature detectives activities in the forest and around the tee pee. Opportunity for younger pupils to bring in teddies for a Teddy Bear Picnic.
Wednesday 30 July - ‘Intriguing Invertebrates’
During our forest time children have the opportunity to look for and study invertebrates. Electricity based STEM activities include making a homopolar motor bug, glow fly or wobble bug to take home.
Thursday 31 July - ‘Pneumatics and Hydraulics!’
An action packed engineering day involving building rockets and diggers which move using either pneumatics or hydraulics. Models can be taken home.
Friday 1 August - ‘Think Bubbles!’
Hands on learning all about bubbles. Create framework structures to make tensile bubbles.
KS 2 - Make a bubblewand to take home using CAD and print with a 3D printer.
Make your own bath bombs to take home and use after an exciting day of STEM Den.
Week 4
Monday 4th Aug - ‘Roaming Robots’
Inspired by robots and machines that help us, we start by discussing the changing role of robots and how they could shape our future. Children work as teams in a fun challenge based on the movie, Big Hero Six.
The afternoon is spent working with VEX kits (KS2/3) or Lego WeDo (KS1)
Tuesday 5th Aug - ‘Mr Ferris and his Wheel’
Our introduction to this day is a story based on Mr George Ferris, American engineer. Children learn about framework structures as they build their own moving Ferris Wheel.
Weds 6th Aug - ‘Time and Tide (wait for no man!)’
An action packed day learning about time through the ages. A practical time related challenge based on the movie ‘Back to the future’ and an opportunity to create some wonderful resin art to take home.
Thurs 7th Aug - ‘All the fun of the Fayre!’
Create your own water pistol or Nerf gun challenge for others to play. Spend the afternoon testing out each other's games and having fun!
Friday 8th Aug - ‘Amazing Animals!’
Geoff will be bringing in a variety of his animals for us to look at and hold. We think about how they have adapted to survive and discuss how engineers look to nature for inspiration and solutions through ‘biomimicry’. Activities include conducting an experiment to see how animals such as seals keep warm, camouflaging techniques and making woodlouse choice chambers.
TO PLACE A BOOKING CLICK HEREWAITING LISTS - In the case that we are fully booked you can ask to be placed on a waiting list.
Please email: stemdennorthwood@gmail.com
In the subject heading put your child's surname and the week number you are looking for. In the body of the email please specify the dates you are looking for, as well as your child's full name. You will be emailed from this address if a place becomes available, make sure our mail does not end up in the junk.
USING TOOLS - One of the reasons STEM Den is so special is that we teach children to use tools to help them build, innovate and problem solve. The tools we use can cause injury if used incorrectly. All of our children are taught to use the equpiment safely and they are supervised when using the tools. Children are expected to behave appropriately when using tools. Parents/guardians who take up a place at STEM Den understand and agree to their children using the tools and equipment for each activity. There are risks involved, which are outweighed by the many benefits. If you have any concerns, please talk to us.
For further information please read our terms and conditions.
To place a booking CLICK HERE
St. John's School, Potter Street Hill, Pinner, HA5 3ZF
Please note: Two week's notice is required for a refund for cancellation.
If you are a STEM Den 'regular' and have completed the activity already on offer on the day you would like to attend, then please do email Mrs McSween as quite often we can tailor the program to accomodate your specific needs. If you are building a portfolio for a STEM or DT&E scholarship at a Senior School this could be you!
What are the Science Crest Awards all about?
Plan, carry out and evaluate your own STEM based investigations to achieve a Nationally Recognized Award. Children aged between 5 and 10 will need 8 investigations all stamped off in their book, Children aged 10 and above take an all day challenge. Click here to find out more.
VEX robotics kits will be available every day on request, depending on availability. There are two different levels of kit depending on age and experience. We have VEX GO and VEX IQ. For our younger students from Rec to Year 3 we have VEX 123 or Educational Lego kits are ideal to start the journey of programming. For our youngest students aged 5 to 7 we suggest this is taught in small bitesize chunks around half an hour long. Click the link to find out more.
Our LEGO, SPHERO BOLT, CRUMBLE and VEX kits are to be used within the camp only and cannot be taken home. You might like to buy a CRUMBLE kit. They are available from Redfern electronics to purchase for around £25 and can be used for hundreds of other project ideas. Software for this is a free download. For more details click here.)
Email if you have a topic you'd like to explore: stemdennorthwood@gmail.com
We may make changes to our program from time to time without notice but do our best to stick to the plan as much as possible. Adaptive teaching allows us to tailor the sessions to accomodate the children being taught, Please do not be surprised if our advertised plan of action changes its course.
