Today we worked outside on the deck for a Sink or Float activity. Honestly, I wasn't really excited about this science lesson because I thought it was going to go way over the twins' heads. I couldn't have been more wrong.
As I prepared the tub with water and set out the items for the experiment, the girls ate their snack. One of the many perks about not teaching in a public school is snacktime. Kids really do work and focus better when they're not hungry. Don't we all?
So, first I explained the difference between sinking and floating and used my hand to show what each looks like. Then, the girls took turns choosing an object, predicting whether it would sink or float, and then dropping it in the tub of water. By the third object it seemed like maybe they got what we were doing. It was clear I misjudged them when we put in the popsicle stick and it floated. Big sister shouted, "Stick floating like straw!" I was amazed that they were making those connections between similar objects.
After we were done, I had them fill in the chart I made to show what happened during the experiment. They actually got it and remembered what happened to each object! I couldn't be more proud.
Tip: if you're having more than one child help you write in information on a chart, have them each use a different color to show ownership in the activity.
Arielle (mommy):
There are not a ton of variations on how to do sink and float (if you have more ideas we'd love to hear them). So even though Cynthia and I didn't discuss how we were teaching the concept, our activities were quite similar.
We did our experiment in the house and since Lil is a couple months shy of 4 and O is 1 1/2, their age ranges differ from the twins whom are 2 1/2.
We conducted our experiment similarly to Cynthia's but we had two bins, and we tried to predict which side an object should go on (sink or float) and then we would move it if we were wrong. The kids liked seeing all the objects in one side floating and all the ones in the other sinking. O got involved by putting objects in and taking them out, he also enjoyed trying to sink the floating objects. After our experiment, we laid out the objects in a graph to compare more and less and to see how many we had in each category.
Like most of these hands on activities it is usually a good idea to give the kids some unstructured time before the activity (to get the splashing out of their systems in this case). Also exploration time after the activity (if the children are interested) is a great opportunity for them to observe what they just learned at their own pace and try things their own way.
A great way to incorporate this activity into every day routines is to let the kids experiment with different objects during bath time.
No comments:
Post a Comment