The Favor Lab: 10 Months of Art + STEM Adventures

The Favor Lab is a monthly educational subscription box that brings science, creativity, and hands-on learning directly to your home.

From September through June, students will explore a new theme through experiments, art projects, bonus facts, vocabulary, reflection prompts, and optional side quests. Each box includes the primary materials needed to complete both the scientific and artistic portions of the lesson.

All three age levels explore the same monthly theme, making The Favor Lab perfect for families with multiple children. The curriculum, experiments, documentation, and artwork are adapted to provide an appropriate challenge for each student.

• DISCOVER: Grades K–4

• INVESTIGATE: Grades 5–8

• INNOVATE: Grades 9–12

What Every Favor Lab Box Includes

Although materials vary with each monthly theme, every Favor Lab box includes:

• An age-appropriate science or STEM investigation

• A coordinating hands-on art project

• Themed experiment and art materials

• Step-by-step curriculum and instructions

• Vocabulary and bonus educational facts

• Prediction, observation, and reflection prompts

• Optional side quests for continued exploration

• A short household-material list when needed

The core materials remain similar across all three age levels. The primary differences are the depth of the curriculum, complexity of the experiment, amount of independent work, method of recording results, and detail expected in the art project.

Monthly activities and materials may be adjusted slightly as each box is finalized, but every Favor Lab box will provide meaningful learning, creative exploration, and screen-free fun.

Create. Experiment. Make a Mess. Learn Something New.

September: The Apple Lab

Explore apples through chemistry, observation, and art.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young scientists will predict and observe what happens when apple slices are exposed to air or treated with lemon juice and salt water. They’ll record changes with words and pictures, try the apple-floating side quest, and paint a bright apple on canvas.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will investigate enzymatic browning by comparing different apple treatments. They’ll identify variables, score changes over time, graph their results, and create an apple color-and-texture study using highlights, shadows, and layered color.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Older students will design a controlled investigation exploring how treatment type or concentration affects enzymatic browning. They’ll analyze data, evaluate limitations, and create a detailed scientific botanical apple study.

Big Question: Why do apples turn brown after they are cut?

October: Spooky Slime Lab

Discover the surprisingly scientific side of slime with a Halloween twist.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Students will mix colorful Halloween slime while observing how liquid ingredients transform into a stretchy new material. They’ll explore texture, practice descriptive vocabulary, add spooky mix-ins, and complete a coordinating Halloween art project.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will explore polymers and test how changes in ingredients affect slime’s stretch, bounce, and texture. They’ll compare slime formulas, record results, and create Halloween-inspired artwork using pattern, color, and composition.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will investigate polymer cross-linking by adjusting ingredient ratios and developing a consistent method for measuring slime behavior. They’ll analyze viscosity, elasticity, and experimental error before completing an advanced Halloween art challenge.

Big Question: How do liquid ingredients combine to create stretchy slime?

November: Changing Leaves Lab

Find out why leaves change color and turn fall observations into art.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young learners will examine fall leaves, compare their shapes and colors, and discover that green is not the only color hiding inside a leaf. They’ll complete a simple leaf-color experiment and create a colorful autumn painting.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will explore chlorophyll and the pigments hidden inside leaves through a guided chromatography experiment. They’ll compare results and create layered leaf artwork featuring blending, veins, texture, and contrast.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will investigate plant pigments and analyze how environmental changes affect chlorophyll production. They’ll document pigment separation, evaluate variables, and create a detailed botanical leaf study.

Big Question: Where do the beautiful colors in fall leaves come from?

December: Hibernation Lab

Discover how animals survive cold weather through adaptation, insulation, and energy conservation.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Students will meet animals that hibernate, compare different winter shelters, and test materials that help keep warmth from escaping. They’ll design a cozy animal habitat and paint an adorable winter animal.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will investigate insulation by comparing how different materials slow temperature changes. They’ll collect timed measurements, identify effective insulators, and create detailed artwork showing an animal in its winter habitat.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will design a controlled thermal-insulation investigation and connect their findings to animal adaptations, metabolism, and energy conservation. Their art project will combine anatomical observation, habitat composition, and visual storytelling.

Big Question: How do animals survive when winter becomes extremely cold?

January: Ice Age Expedition

Travel back to a frozen world filled with glaciers, woolly mammoths, fossils, and incredible animal adaptations.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young explorers will discover how thick fur, body fat, and other adaptations helped Ice Age animals survive. They’ll rescue a prehistoric animal from ice, compare melting methods, explore insulation, and paint a colorful woolly mammoth canvas.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will investigate how insulation slows heat transfer by testing materials such as felt, cotton, foil, and paper. They’ll measure and compare results, model glacial movement, and create a textured Ice Age animal or landscape painting.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will design a controlled investigation examining insulation efficiency, ice-melting rates, or glacial movement. They’ll analyze quantitative data, connect their evidence to climate and extinction, and create a detailed scientific Ice Age animal or glacial study.

Bonus Side Quest: Test different methods for freeing a prehistoric animal from ice. Which method works fastest, and why?

Big Question: How did Ice Age animals survive in such a cold and changing world?

February: Love Yourself & Be Kind Lab

Explore kindness, emotions, individuality, and the ways our words and actions affect ourselves and others.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young learners will identify kind actions, positive emotions, and qualities that make each person special. They’ll complete a colorful heart-themed activity, take on simple kindness challenges, and paint a cheerful “Be Kind, Be You” canvas.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will explore how kindness, positive self-talk, and emotions can affect the body and brain. They’ll reflect on emotional responses and create expressive artwork using color, affirmations, symbols, and personal strengths.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will examine connections between stress, empathy, self-talk, and emotional well-being. They’ll identify patterns and create an intentional mixed-media artwork focused on self-worth, compassion, identity, or human connection.

Bonus Side Quest: Complete several secret acts of kindness and record how each action affected the giver and receiver.

Big Question: How can the way we treat ourselves and others create positive change?

March: Dinosaur Discovery Lab

Travel back to the prehistoric world to explore dinosaurs, fossils, adaptations, extinction, and paleontology.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Students will meet herbivores, carnivores, and some of the most fascinating dinosaurs from long ago. They’ll compare dinosaur teeth, feet, and body shapes, create a simple fossil impression, and paint a colorful dinosaur canvas.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will use fossil evidence to investigate how dinosaurs moved, ate, and survived. They’ll compare physical adaptations, create fossil models, and paint a prehistoric habitat featuring texture, depth, and scientifically informed details.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will analyze fossil evidence and design an investigation involving dinosaur anatomy, trackways, movement, or environmental change. They’ll evaluate competing explanations and create a detailed scientific dinosaur or fossil study.

Bonus Side Quest: Use dinosaur footprints and other clues to determine whether a mystery dinosaur was most likely a predator or plant-eater.

Big Question: How can fossils help us understand animals that lived millions of years ago?

April: Busy Bees Lab

Buzz into pollination, bee biology, ecosystems, and honeycomb-inspired art.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young scientists will learn how bees move pollen from flower to flower and why pollinators are important. They’ll model pollination, examine honeycomb shapes, and create a cheerful bee-and-flower painting.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will model pollination, track pollen movement, and explore relationships between bees, flowers, and food production. Their artwork will feature symmetry, pattern, texture, and geometric honeycomb shapes.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will analyze pollination efficiency, bee behavior, or hive structure through a controlled model. They’ll evaluate ecological connections and create a scientific bee or botanical study.

Bonus Side Quest: Design a pollinator-friendly garden using plants that could support bees in your community.

Big Question: Why are bees so important to plants, animals, and people?

May: Cycles of the Sun & Space Lab

Explore sunlight, shadows, Earth’s rotation, orbits, and our place in space.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young scientists will observe how sunlight creates shadows and discover why shadows change throughout the day. They’ll complete a sun or space challenge and paint a colorful solar-system-inspired canvas.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will measure shadow changes, model Earth’s rotation, and connect their observations to day and night. Their artwork will explore scale, movement, contrast, and layered space imagery.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will design an investigation involving solar angle, shadow length, orbital motion, or energy from the sun. They’ll graph and analyze their results before creating a detailed astronomical composition.

Bonus Side Quest: Build a simple sundial and track how its shadow changes throughout the day.

Big Question: How do the movements of Earth and the sun create the cycles we experience?

June: Sea Turtles & Sharks Lab

Dive into the ocean to discover how sea turtles and sharks move, find food, protect themselves, and survive in underwater habitats.

DISCOVER | Grades K–4

Young ocean explorers will compare sea turtles and sharks while learning about shells, fins, flippers, gills, teeth, and camouflage. They’ll test different shapes in water and create a colorful sea turtle or shark painting.

INVESTIGATE | Grades 5–8

Students will investigate how body shape affects movement through water. They’ll design and test shark and sea-turtle models, record travel times or distances, and connect their results to drag, buoyancy, and animal adaptations. Their art project will feature a detailed sea turtle and shark in an ocean habitat.

INNOVATE | Grades 9–12

Students will design a controlled investigation examining hydrodynamics, buoyancy, camouflage, or temperature regulation. They’ll collect quantitative data and explain how natural selection shaped the bodies and behaviors of sharks and sea turtles. Their art project will be a scientific sea-life study or detailed marine ecosystem composition.

Bonus Side Quest: Research a threat facing sharks or sea turtles and design a realistic conservation solution.

Big Question: How do the different body structures of sharks and sea turtles help them survive in the ocean?