Floating Away

We were discussing floating and sinking in class this past week and what is one thing that most kids know that floats?.... A BOAT! So to bring the float and sink methods to life we made boats! The first step was collecting the materials.

The items that I gave them to choose from are

• Tin pie bases
• Styrofoam bowls
• Pipe Cleaners
• Construction Paper
• Seaplane sheets
• Straws
• Electrical tape
• Clear tape
• Glue
• Tissues
• Popsicle Sticks
• Cupcake liners
• Printer Paper
• Scissors

They had to choose a KEEL first, a MAST, and then a SAIL. These were also 3 words they focused on learning and knowing the meaning of. 

Some of the questions we were trying to answer were:

1. How does a heavy thing like a boat float on water?
2. Does the size of the mast and sail make a difference? Why?
3. If you want your boat to go faster, what sort of sail or other devices should your boat have?
4. Which keel worked better? Why?
5. After testing their boat, what would they change and why?
6. Which materials seemed to work better than others?

The kids really loved making their own boats and designing their own sails. They got very creative and truly thought about how they should make it so that their boat would float and float fast. 

Once they were finished we took them outside and tested them. They tried sinking them, racing them, seeing how much they could put inside until the boat wouldn't hold any longer, etc.

Afterwards, we went back into the classroom and discussed what worked and what didn't. Some students even went back and fixed things to try their boats again.