Sink or Float Science

Ahoy, Mateys! This week we did some fun water experiments to tie into our pirate theme. There are a whole boat-load (pun intended) of water and boat experiments in Science Activities - Volume One, but we only had time to do a few of them.

Admittedly, this first experiment (sink or float) was done over a year ago, right after Tommy turned three year old. He was the perfect age for this experiment then. We walked all over the house gathering small "treasures" for Tommy to test in the water. Most of the objects sank, but some of them did float, which was a delightful surprise for him the first few times. We dumped the treasures out and repeated the experiment at least five times that day. A huge part of this experiment for us was introducing Tommy to the vocabulary of "sink" and "float" in addition to the concept. It was a huge success and he loved it.
Fast forward 14 months to this week when we did another floating experiment with water. This time we made "boats" out of different objects to see which ones would hold the most marbles and stay afloat. Turns out a regular old tupperware container makes a pretty great boat! You could always dress up the boats a little more with some paint and a little flag or something. After our experiment Tommy had a great time playing with his pirate figures in the water. They had battles which his guys always won (of course). Enjoy, Mateys!