Friday, February 06, 2009

Unplugged Project : Float

We participated in this week's Unplugged Project again. The theme this week is FLOAT and we decided to do more science projects. My kids are pretty little so this was super simple, but we really had a fun time making predictions about what would happen and trying different things out as we thought of them.

The original idea came from yet another library book - this one called Boats, Ships, Submarines and Other Floating Machines by Ian Graham.

So basically we started by filling a bowl with water and talking about how some things float and some things sink. After discussing that heavy things sink, we talked specifically about play-doh. When I put a ball of play-doh in the water, it sunk of course. But when I made the play-doh into a boat like shape then it floated. This is to show that it also has to do with the shape and not just the weight.

After that we floated a metal jar lid and I let the boys mess around with it to figure out in what situations it would float and when it would sink. They really had a nice time with that, and got a little wet which is always a plus for kids.

I confess I also tried another activity from the book to make a submarine but was not quite able to get it to work. Maybe tomorrow we will give that another shot.

I did take photos but this project was not very photogenic so there wasn't really anything worth posting.

7 comments:

Erica said...

Good idea with the playdoh, I bet they enjoyed it :)

So Smrt said...

Ohh, I thought about play-dough, but didn't it get super slimy???

Anonymous said...

Great idea! The playdough boat was especially inspired. Thanks for joining in again!

Treff said...

Boats made of play-doh are fun! Great way to show the float concept...

Tamara said...

Yes, it got slimy, and the play-doh smell was much more pronounced. I left it out to dry and then put it away and it is as good as new.

Myth said...

I never thought of using playdough!

Betula said...

thanks for reminding me -,have wanted to do playdough boats for a while!