Does it sink or float?

Going along with the theme of transportation today we talked about boats.  Our story today was titled Who sank the boat?  In the story a cow, donkey, sheep, and pig get on a boat.  Then a little mouse gets on the boat and the boat sinks.  As a class we had to use our background knowledge to figure out who sank the boat.  After some discussion we concluded that it wasn't the mouse who sank the boat, it was the weight of all of the animals together that sank the boat.

During center time the children used a meat tray to make their own boats.  They then floated their boats in our sensory table.  This week our sensory table also has pieces of foil by it.  I modeled for the children how to make a foil boat.  They then can use the small rocks and play people in the sensory table to experiment with how much weight their boat can hold before it sinks.

During outdoor play time today we inquired even more about sinking and floating.  The children were placed in groups of three.  Each group was given a bucket of water.  Then each child was given an object to test if it sank or floated.  We tested a feather, penny, plastic spoon, metal spoon, toy car, craft stick, crayon, bouncy ball, and Lego.  We concluded that objects that are heavy sink and objects that are light float.