Last week a student brought up the question about whether or not an object would float and so we jumped into a short inquiry about sinking and floating.  We started off with a video about why some objects sink and some float. Then it was onto experimenting with a variety of objects.  Students tested and sorted objects that float and objects that sink.

Students decided that heavy objects sink and light objects float. So I asked the question, “Why does a boat float?” The students all agreed that boats are heavy so they were all a little puzzled.

We watched a video about why boats float and learned the word buoyancy. Then we read a story about how a girl built a boat and created a list of boat parts. Then it was time to get to work building! Students used a variety of materials to design and build a boat.

Our learning buddies came in and joined us as we tested out our boats, made some revisions, and retested them.  There was a lot of rich conversation going on around reasons for floating and sinking and what should be done to fix problems. The teamwork between the kindergartens and Big Buddies was incredible!