Sink or Float Experiment with Printable

Sink or Float Activity

Printable

Science Sunday! Okay, that’s not really a thing here, but it sounds good. I meant to get to this yesterday but we had a whole lot of nothing going on…. you know how that is. Lore was hopping up and down when I mentioned doing an experiment. She followed me around like a little duckling while I collected everything, questioning the entire time what we were going to do. I just kept telling her that it was a surprise. I loaded up a bowl with different bits that I found lying around – glue top, cupcake liner, bottle cap, screw and a washer, spoon, a penny, cottonball, etc. She kept grabbing my arm to lower the bowl so she could peer into it and then would huff, “This is so weird!”

Materials – Getting Started

Then I filled up a large bowl with water and we made our way out to the patio. When I finally got around to explaining the experiment to her, I admit, it was a bit anti-climatic. It didn’t sound as fun as our baking soda and vinegar volcano, or color mixing experiment, or rain cloud experiment. But, she actually had a lot of fun. A lot.

Objects sinking and floating

Tallying up the results

She smiled the entire time and would do this little jig whenever she got it right. (She predicted what was going to happen first.) She would dramatically gasp when she would pull something out of the bowl that seemed too good to be dropped into another bowl filled with water. Like Daddy’s 10-sided dice for work, or her beaded bracelet.

In the end, I would say this was overall pretty fun. We’ll definitely do it again!

Materials We Used:

• 2 bowls – 1 large, 1 regular
• Different things around the house that you can use in the experiment – Cotton ball, q-tip, penny, screw, washer, spoon, measuring spoon, bottle cap, cupcake liner, beads, etc.
• Water
• 1 Sheet of Paper for the printable
• Crayon

What To Do:

1. Before your child drops the object in the water, have him/her predict what will happen.
2. Drop the object in the water.
3. Make a tally on the worksheet.
4. Repeat until all of the objects (including the bowl if there is room) are recorded.
5. Count up the tally marks and record at the bottom of the sheet.