Sinking and Floating

The water of the flood/mabul made us think about sinking and floating.  Monday morning was warm and sunny. We took a sensory bin outside and filled it with water. We gathered together: acorns, a marble, coins, a ball of silver foil, a feather, a cork, paper clip, wood chips, rocks, bottle tops. The children hypothesized which items would sink or float. We dropped the items into the water and watched if they floated or sank. Some things both floated and sank. The bottle caps floated when we were careful not to get water in them as we dropped them into the water. When water got into them, they sank. The coins sank. How could we put more coins in the water and keep them from sinking? We crafted a boat from silver foil and dropped coins into it. After counting 100 coins the boat was still floating. That was a lot of pennies and counting! We took the bag of coins and just dropped the rest into the boat. Whoops, the boat capsized. When we finished the experiment the children took watering “cans” and filled them up and watered the garden.

After we came inside we made a chart of sinking and floating items. This was fun. We should do it again.