I am sure that I am not alone in saying this. My child loves water play. Water play has saved me on more than one occasion. It is truly a wonderful way to keep your child engaged and occupied. It is also a wonderful way to incorporate a lesson or two & get them thinking and interactive. Experiments do not have to be complicated. For me, the simpler it is the better.
Recently we collected a bowl full of loose parts while cleaning the house & emptying out junk drawers & craft bins. Our first experiment put these pieces to good use.
Will it sink or float?
All you will need is a large bowl filled with water and different objects of varying sizes & weights.
Have your child add them one by one to the water & ask them if they sink or float. My daughter had so much fun with this that we had to keep finding more objects to add to our bowl. I was actually pretty surprised myself at which objects floated & which ones sank.
Water See Saw
What you will need:
A shoe box cover
An empty Saran Wrap or tin foil roll. (You may use a paper towel roll, but the rolls from tin foil or cling wrap are far sturdier.
Hot glue
A piece of Saran wrap
Dixie cups
A squirt bottle
Water
Directions: Measure your box & mark the center of your box on the top end of the cover. Hot glue the roll to the middle of the box as shown. This will form your see saw.
Tear off a square of Saran Wrap, fold it & lay it down. Place the see saw on the Saran Wrap roll side down. The Saran Wrap will help keep it from moving.
Fill a squirt bottle with water. Give your child a stack of Dixie cups & show them how to put the cups on the see saw. Have them add water to the cups & watch as the side with the most water teeters down. Help them try to achieve balance by filling up the cups on each end or just let them perform their own experiment.
As you can see by that happy little face, this experiment was a big hit with my daughter. She loved it. We kept emptying the cups & refilling. We even got our see saw to balance a few times. You could also try this with beans or some other small items. It was hard to drag her away, but we had to go to our final water experiment of the night…bath time.
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21 comments
Totally reminded me of when i taught a lesson of density to my 8th graders in science back when I taught with the sink or swim activity 😉
Mai had a ton of fun with this. My husband and mother-in-law were playing with the see saw this morning. So it is a great activity for a bored husband or Nana too. Lol
Love this! I’d like to try it with one of our preschool groups.
It was easy set up and clean up and kept my daughter engaged for about an hour. Win!
Excellent, this kind of fun teaching also teaches curiosity and problem solving. Great teaching tool mom! Love it.
Thank you very much. She is a pretty curious one already. Lol
You have some fun ideas here. My kids love experimenting like this.
Thank you. She had a ton of fun with this.
That’s a totally fun experiment. I can see my one twin loving this and my son!
She really loved both of these. She played them both again today.
She looks like she is having a blast!
She was! She loves this kind of stuff.
Really great ideas! Thanks for the share. I’m pinning this to use later with my kiddos 🙂
Thank you for pinning. This was wonderful. She had so much fun.
That is so cool! I can see the sheer delight on her face… It’s a fun and easy to clean up experiment. 🙂
She was very excited. She was clapping & cheering as her see saw went up & down. It was wonderful to watch.
Water play is the best! Thank you for these great ideas!
Water play is a life saver. I love it!
We’ve tried these before! Water play is so much fun!! So cute!
We love water play! Water is the only thing that keeps my 2 year olds attention for awhile! Thanks for sharing!
Yes, the same for me too. Water play will keep mine entertained for hours.