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Gather the photos, drawings, and some of the charts you’ve created over the three weeks: “Our Ideas About Water,” “Bodies of Water,” and “Our Ideas About Sinking and Floating.” Display some of the containers, tools, and materials you used as you review your explorations.
Tools for Moving Water
Ask children to demonstrate how they used some of the tools to move water.
- If we wanted to pour water into this narrow bottle, what tools would be good to use? Can someone demonstrate how a funnel works? What about the baster?
- What are some of the interesting things you noticed about putting water in the clear tubes?
- Can someone demonstrate the different things an eyedropper/pipette can do?
The Shape of Water
Ask:
- If we put some water in a bottle, in a cup, and in a tube, what would the shape of the water be?
- How would you describe the shape of water drops?
Absorption
Pour some water on a tray. Place a sponge, a paper towel, and a cotton ball nearby. Ask:
- What are some of the different materials that can absorb, or soak up, water?
- Can I have some volunteers demonstrate how different materials can soak up the water on this tray? What do you think does the best job? Why?
- When we made puddles and streams outside, the surfaces we made our waterways on sometimes absorbed the water. Which surfaces seemed to absorb a lot of water and which ones didn’t? Describe what you noticed.
Bodies of Water
Gather in the Art Center, where you’ve displayed:
- photos of different bodies of water from books or the Internet
- photos of children’s puddles, streams, dams, and waterfalls
- drawings of different bodies of water
Ask:
- What were some good places to build puddles and streams? Why did these work so well? What were some places that didn’t work that well?
- Describe how you built your dam. If you had any problems blocking the water, tell us about them and how you solved the problems.
Float or Sink?
Move to the Sink or Float learning center. Ask children if they thought it was always easy to tell if something would float or sink. Ask them for examples of things that floated or sank that surprised them. (You might mention the orange, peeled and unpeeled, as an example.) Then ask them about:
- material: what materials seemed to float the best? Which ones seemed to sink? (plastic, metal, foam, paper, etc.?)
- shape: when you built boats, how do you think their shape helped them to float? Which shape of boat seemed to work best for holding most pennies?
Finish by showing photos/videos of boats as pennies were loaded on to them.
