- recycled food tray
- clear plastic bin with water
- Who Sank the Boat? (book)
- boat
- float
- sink
MA Standards:
Speaking and Listening/SL.PK.MA.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners during daily routines and play.
Language/L.PK.MA.6: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, listening to books read aloud, activities, and play.
Head Start Outcomes:
Language Development/Receptive Language: Attends to language during conversations, songs, stories, or other learning experiences.
Language Development/Expressive Language: Uses language to express ideas and needs.
Logic and Reasoning/Reasoning and Problem Solving: Classifies, compares, and contrasts objects, events, and experiences.
PreK Learning Guidelines:
English Language Arts/Language 2: Participate actively in discussions, listen to the ideas of others, and ask and answer relevant questions.
Talk Together: Floating Boats
© Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Early Education and Care (Jennifer Waddell photographer). All rights reserved.
STEM Key Concepts: Objects behave differently in water; Some things float; Some things sink; If you add enough weight to a floating object, it will sometimes sink; Solids have physical characteristics that can be observed and described
ELA Focus Skills: Listening and Speaking, Predicting, Vocabulary
Review floating and sinking with children. Hold up the food tray and ask children if they think it will float or sink when you place it in the water. Demonstrate floating by placing the tray in the water. Ask, Do you think you can make our “boat” sink? How would you do it? Have them demonstrate.
Then direct attention to the two books on display and ask,
- How did the animals in Who Sank the Boat? float on top of the water? (in a boat)
- Flip through the pages and ask, How did the boat sink? (too much weight)
Tell children they are going to explore making boats float and sink.