Here’s a fun sink or float activity your child is gonna love! Shh… you’ll love it too! Aside from being super entertaining, you’ll be teaching your child a little bit about density and buoyancy.
Above you’ll find illustrated instructions for your child to lead this water theme activity. Below is a cheat sheet on the four steps illustrated above for the adults. When we did this at home we had a lot of fun thinking about what items we wanted to test. We also talked about and made predictions — our best educated guess about what might happen. We then talked about process — doing the actual testing. And, of course, conclusion — what happened, what we learned, and why. We came up with this activity to go with the book Jabari Jumps written and illustrated by Gaia Cornwall.
- Fill a bowl 3/4 of the way with water (of your desired temperature)
- Find several small items that you will drop into the bowl. We used an old crayon, loose change, a key, a button, and a plastic spoon.
- Choose your first item (we used a spoon) and make a prediction about what will happen. Then go through the process of dropping the item into the bowl — did it sink or float? Say the conclusion out loud and discuss.
- Repeat with another item (we used a crayon). You may remove the first item or leave it in the bowl if you have space.
Want more fun activities for preschoolers? Try these:
Use a toy hammer to build a tower with building blocks
Dance activity for preschoolers with a scarf
I hope you love playing this sink of float activity!
