Does it Sink or float? : STEM Activity for kindergartners

Here is another fun filled science activity for water-loving kids!😀LO loves to play with water anytime anywhere😉. He doesn't bother about wetting his clothes while playing, but it bothers a lot when a drop of water/juice/food wets his clothes while eating!😏 Right now he is close to 6 years, still I'm not able to win over the eating time battle!!😕 Going off the track! Let's get into the STEM activity for curious little champs!👦

This is a low-preparation activity, the kids can do either indoor or outdoor. If you are planning to make it indoors, make sure you protect your floor with some sheets/mat to prevent the mess-up by water spillage. 

I prefer to make it outdoor, on the patio, so that LO can get as wet and wild as he like with it!

This is a simple science experiment that will encourage your children to make predictions and observations about buoyancy and density. They’ll learn that buoyant objects float and dense objects sink. I'm sure at this age KGs find it difficult to understand the concept of buoyancy and density. Bigger kids could get the concept, but for KGs this would be an opportunity to get introduced to such concepts. 

Learning apart! Let's get into the fun part.😉

Things we used:

• A tray
• Toys and small objects
• A paper and a pen

I asked LO to get me some objects for the activity. This would probably be a mini scavenger hunt for them! He collected some of his toys, and I gathered some spoons(both metal and plastic),keys, cloth pins, green leaf, etc. 

At the end of activity I planned to make a list, categorizing the objects that would float and sink.

Filled the tray with water.. and the fun began! I asked him to drop the objects one-by-one and observe what happens.

LO already had an insight of sink and float. So it was bit easy to carry the play.
Sink- the objects would go deep into the water!
Float- the objects would stay on the surface of water!

Many questions were raised by LO! Why the bowling pin so big and it doesn't sink, but the small cloth pin sinks? I managed to answer, that the bowling pin is made of plastic so it floats, but the cloth pin is made of a metal so it sinks! Silly though, but the answer convinced him!😜

He forced the thermocol block to get immersed. But it didn't listen!😀

We even had a couple of things that just sort of sank, but kinda floated too. This caused confusion. Finally we sorted out the things in two piles, float and sink.

Again we repeated the play with things that only float, and the things that sink, separately.

And the play went on in repeat mode!!💓😀

Later, we discussed about the play, and listed out the items that float and sink on a sheet of paper.

During the play encourage your kids to talk about,

• Float and sink concepts
• What the floating objects have in common?
• What if an empty plastic container is put in water? and what if the same container is filled with water and dropped in the tray?
• Before placing each object in water you can ask kids to predict whether it would float or sink?

Have a great time playing and discussing about the science concept! Please share your comments in the comment box. It means a lot to me!😊

Happy Parenting!😊😊