Reception become Designers and Scientists!

This week we have been learning about boats as part of our Transport topic. 

Firstly, the children became designers. They took time to think about the materials they would use and how they wanted their boats to look. 

We then followed our plans meticulously to create the boats. The children used their material list to use the right objects and took time to create their boats.

Towards the end of the week we became scientists. We tested our boats to see if they would float. We decided to use 10 seconds to make sure that the test was the same for all the boats, this also allowed us to practise our counting.

Some of the boats floated and some of the boats sank.

We thought about why this has happened. The children identified that some of the materials weren’t waterproof. The cardboard boats sank after a few moments.
‘My boat was cardboard and the water went right through it, I would use maybe plastic next time.’ - Alfie
Some of the plastic tubs also had a few holes in. The children could identify that these made the water come into the boat.
‘My boat has holes in the bottom. Next time I could either cover them or use a tub without holes in.’ - Jorel
The last problem we found was that some of our boats were not balanced well and tipped into the water. This caused them to fill with water and then sink.
‘One side tipped over - the cup then filled with water and sank. It didn’t have holes in though.’ - Eva
This was a fantastic learning opportunity for the children and helped them to think scientifically.

Well done everybody!