Reception- sinking and floating

 This week, we have been learning all about different types of boats as part of our transport topic. This meant we spent lots of time outside playing in the water trays experimenting with different size boats. 

The children became very interested in how the boats could float, especially cruise ships and ferries when they are carrying lots of people and cars. 

We decided to carry out our own investigations to discover which objects would float and sink. 

The children used the new vocabulary to guess if various items would float or sink. They learnt that 'sinked' isn't a word and we have to change it to 'sunk' but 'floated' is. How confusing we thought! 

‘Sink means it goes down low’ Macie

‘Float means when it stays on the top’ Amelia

‘I think the cube will sink because it doesn’t have water on it’ Archie

We tested a plastic bear in the water too.

‘ I think it will sink because it has a small hole in it’ Jesse Joy

A wooden duck was tested next.
Most of the class thought it would sink. It actually floated!

A pencil sunk to the bottom which everyone was excited about as most of our items floated!

We then looked at an empty yoghurt pot. We found that when empty it floated , but when it was full of water it sunk.

We then tried the different objects inside the floating yoghurt pot.
We found that the coin, which sunk, floated when inside the yoghurt pot.

We also experimented with dropping objects from different height to see if it made a difference. When the elastic band was dropped from height, it sank but when it was dropped just above the water, it floated! 
The children had the opportunity to choose their own things from the class to test if they would float or sink.

‘Only the tail is floating on the dinosaur’- Elijah
‘The Lego flower sinks’ Zera