Sink or Float

Last week, we did a sink or float activity for science. I had everyone gather around the table and I had ten items. Before putting each item in the water, we went around the table asking each child if the particular item would sink or float. We created a chart showing how many children thought each item would sink or float and the real results. The items were:

A cotton ball,

A pompom,

A smaller black rock,

A larger gray rock,

A clam shell,

A leggo,

A cork,

A golf ball,

A plastic turtle shell

And an apple.

I asked the children what sink meant and one child said that it meant where you wash your hands. That was right, but I explained that in this case, it meant that the object would go to the bottom of the bucket. When I asked what float meant, one girl said that it would stay on top of the water. So as the experiment went on, we talked about concepts such as the weight of the different items and heavy vs. light. The children were surprised that the cotton ball appeared to float at first, but then sank to the bottom as it absorbed water. We were all surprised to see the apple stayed afloat. The children really enjoyed this activity so at the end, I let them drop each item in a second time and then help me dry everything off. I'm sure we'll experiment again with different items in the near future. Here is the chart that we made.

Water Play

Since this week’s theme is the ocean, we did some sensory play with the babies. We were supposed to let them play in the mud today, but we decided just to start off with sand. It was in a low sensory table, but the babies were having trouble standing, holding on and trying to play with the sand. So we decided to take the tub out of the table and put it on the ground. This way they could sit in it. While most of the babies were napping this morning, Baby L and Baby K were the first ones to try it. Baby K freaked out and didn’t want anything to do with the sand so we put her in the swing. She loves the outside swing. Baby L loves the sand and he kept putting it into his mouth. He kept playing with a shovel and a turtle scoop. Eventually, we had to take him out because he was eating way too much sand. The sand turned out a little like mud since the tub was still wet from the water that was in it yesterday.

Then this afternoon, the classroom supervisor brought in some seaweed. Since seaweed dries out quickly, we added water to the tub, but we dumped the sand back into the sand box. This was also nap time for most of the babies. Babies J, K and L were awake. Baby K freaked out even worse this time so she went back into the swing. Baby L loved the water. He kept splashing and splashing. The water would get all over him and the ground which made him laugh. He tasted the seaweed and I wondered what he thought of it. It couldn’t have been that good. Baby J also tasted the seaweed, but he wasn’t as excited about the water. He splashed around a little bit though. I was disappointed that Baby C and Crawling Baby didn’t get to play with the water and seaweed. I would’ve liked to have seen their reactions.

Then when I was about to leave, they were setting up a painting project and tomorrow, they will get to color and play with the mud. The babies are having a busy week.

Pond Sensory Tub

Here’s a simple pond sensory tub.



What’s in it?

Water,
Stones of different shapes and sizes,
Rubber duckies,
A frog,
A turtle,
Plastic aquarium plants,
Different sized cups for pouring
And pieces of foil supposed to be Lilly pads.




I tried to make Lilly pads from foil or at least something shaped kind of round or oval, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t get anything close to a circle, oval and certainly not anything shaped like a Lilly pad. Plus I was rushing to get the tub done and didn’t want to keep messing with foil. I kept the pieces in there anyway because it was something that floats. The kids can pretend they are whatever they want them to be. I like the stones though and the duckies are fun too! If you squeeze the ducks, water comes out of the mouth. I’m sure water would be all over the place when the kids discover that.






For next time, I’d include more plants, more plastic frogs and turtles and maybe I could find some fish that look more like fresh water fish. The plastic fish I have are all sharks, seals etc. I need to take another trip to the dollar store soon. You could also include larger stones or pieces of wood and if you are really adventurous, put a little dirt on the bottom.

Melting Hearts

What you’ll need:

Tray of ice cubes,
Bowl of colored water,
A small amount of salt,
Extra bowls for pouring and transferring,
Small spoon
And an eye dropper.

For the ice cubes, I chose heart shaped for Valentines Day and I colored the water red.
The purpose of this activity is to compare ways of trying to melt the hearts. Will the water, salt or water and salt together melt the hearts faster?
Another thing about this activity is it’s great for fine motor skills while scooping and squeezing the eye dropper.



On the top left, there are the ice cubes. Next to them is the red water. On the bottom left, there is the salt, and then the empty bowl that the salt can be transferred too and finally on the bottom right corner, there is the other empty bowl for the red water. The water is transferred with the eye dropper and the small spoon is used for the salt. The kids can take apart the ice by themselves. That is one of the things I like about silicone trays is the ice is easy to take out because it doesn’t stick.

What happens when red water is added to the hearts?


What happens when salt is added to the hearts?


Finally, what happens when you combine everything?

Exploring Ice Sensory Tub

First, I filled the ice cube tray with water and put in random small objects so they would freeze in the ice cubes. I used a piece of a straw, round bead, sparkly heart, a penny, dice, round stones, a button, a shiny star, a pompom and two marshmallows. The marshmallows didn’t freeze, but the pompom was frozen even in the middle because it absorbed the water. For the four empty spaces in the tray, I added drops of food coloring. I overfilled some of the spaces and the colors started to spill over into the other spaces and mix before the cubes froze.
I took two silicone cupcake holders and made cupcake shaped ice cubes. It was one of my favorite parts of the tub and now I’m looking for other things around the house that would be neat to put water in and freeze. I also included ice cubes shaped liked hearts.






After everything was frozen, I put all the ice cubes into the tub with some sponges, cups, funnels, a spatula with points, straws, eye droppers, a turkey baster, a shovel, a paint brush and q-tips to explore the ice with. They can find treasures within the ice cubes, look at mixing colors, experience the ice melting and play with the water.

Bath time For Baby

Here’s a bath time with baby sensory tub. I got the idea from this bath time sensory tub done by Counting Coconuts. Here’s the messier version with water and real bubbles. It’s good if you have the time and don’t mind a little water play. It would work better in the sink or bathtub.
Here’s what’s in the tub or in this case next to the tub since not everything fit.
Two different scrub brushes, (one with soft bristles and one with rough bristles)
Soft sponge,
Plastic cup,
Plastic bottle with cover,
Wash cloth and hand towel,
Soap dish with cute little heart shaped soap, (slightly scented)
A baby doll,
And a cute little rubber ducky.


The plastic bottle is to keep things like body wash or lotion in for travel.
The cup is from a bathroom set that we found in the clearance isle at Sears.
The brushes and sponge are from a bath set I received as a gift years ago and I’ve never used them.
The soap dish was from another bath set.
I think the heart soap was from a hotel.
The rubber ducky is part of a set called Sweetheart Ducks that are obviously for Valentines day.
I bought them six years ago and I think they were from this website, but maybe not.




To make the bubbles, I used apple body wash from Bath and Body Works, but you can use whatever bubble bath or soap you’d like.








The baby pictured is called a water baby. She is the big version and I’ve kept her for over 20 years now and brought her out for the photos. I also had the smaller version and I was hoping to use her for the pictures instead because she’d fit in the tub better, but she’s not in the bucket of dolls that I’ve kept. For those who don’t know, you fill the baby with warm water and that’s what makes her shaped more like a baby and she feels squishy instead of hard vinyl or plush. I didn’t know if they still made these dolls so I looked around and found some on Amazon. They have a much bigger selection now, but you have to look through all of them because some are more expensive.
Water Baby in lavender.
Water Baby in pink.
Water Baby Newborn.
Water Babies Fun Bath Set
There are more on Amazon and other sites than what I’ve linked to here.




I hope you’ve enjoyed this post.

Frozen Shapes

I receive an E-mail newsletter from, Play-Activities.com where I saw this idea. I thought it would be neat to try so I’m posting it.


Frozen Water Shapes

Materials:
Various size balloons
Food coloring
Eye droppers
Large container for water play


Preparation:
1. Select different shaped balloons
2. Fill with water
3. Put in freezer for a few days
4. After they are frozen solid- cut away the balloon, leaving the shape.

Ideas:
Put the ice shapes into the large container. ( baby bath, paddling pool or water table)
Allow them to drop the food colouring onto the ice and watch the colors change.

Good For:
Hand - Eye Coordination
Experimentation
Creativity

You could also do this with different shaped ice cube trays.

Sink or Float

I wanted to get the kids more involved in science activities so I decided on an activity to see if things would sink or float. I used a small round container so we could use one object at a time. It was easier for the kids to really observe what would happen that way. Of course, everyone wanted to be the one putting the materials in the container so it was a struggle to convince 12 kids to each take one turn.

I used things like a plastic Easter egg, paper towel, rock, piece of straw, a coin, a paper clip, cotton ball, a piece of tin foil etc. Each child predicted whether the object would sink or float and then we’d put the object in the container. It turned out that most of the kids guessed right. These kids are mostly two and three-years-old, but with older kids you could actually make a graph of their predictions so they could look back and see if what they thought in the beginning was right.

One kid told me that rocks sink because they are heavy. Another kid told me that Easter eggs float because they are light. They learned about absorption. When the cotton ball was light and hadn’t absorbed any water yet, it would float. Once it was filled with water, it was heavy and sank to the bottom. The same thing went for the paper towel. They thought it was cool because it had changed and didn’t go as predicted. Unfortunately, we only had about ten minutes to finish this activity, but they wanted to keep putting the different objects back into the water. This is a simple activity that kids really enjoy.