There has been a recurring interest over the past few months which we have included in much of our play and have explored in different ways. That interest is…boats. Many different kinds of boats – ferries, fishing, sailing, lifeboats, cruise ships…we never tire of boats!

This week the staff in the setting have tried to deepen our learning about boats and answer some of our questions by putting provocations and learning enhancements in the water tray for us to explore and use in our play.

Some questions we have recently asked have been “why  does the big boat float?” “Why does the ferry not sink?” “Why did the Titanic sink?” The water tray has been a great resource for us to find out some answers!

At the beginning of the week we explored floating through experimenting with differently shaped “boats”. Some of us were interested to learn the word buoyancy too. We tried different shaped boats and different weights. We noticed that light boats floated but also some heavy boats did too, just like the boats we see in real life! Some of us tried to make plasticine and blu-tac heavy boats but some sank while others floated. We wondered why? As we explored with each other, and sometimes with the support of an adult, we learned that the shape of the heavy boats made a difference to whether it floated or sank. With the help of the Smartboard and books we learned that the shape of the boat is important for pushing water to the side. We thought about, and discussed, all the boats we know and how they have similar shapes. We added cars and stones and people onto our boats to see what would happen and how many we could add before the boats got too heavy. We played ferry games and rescue missions using these resources.

Mid week we explored ice. Some of us learned about icebergs. We know they are very cold! We learned that they float on water, they are very hard and that they melt. We used the ice in the water play to enhance our small world play and to recreate stories. There was also ice outdoors this week. We took some balls of snow and pieces of ice inside to see how quickly they would melt into the water and used snow and ice outdoors to make “ice soup”, “ice tea” and “ingredients”. We noticed the haily puckles floated on the surface of the water, just like tiny icebergs.

 

At the end of the week we explored density by experimenting with the weight of different objects in the water. We explored feathers, stones and balloons. One of us commented that “balloons hae air in dem and they float on water so boats maybe hae air in dem.” The staff helped us explore this by providing balloons filled with air and balloons filled with water. Many of us were fascinated to link how the air inside helped the balloon float but when the air leaves, perhaps through a hole, and water gets in, the balloon sinks.

We have learned so much science, literacy and numeracy through our water play this week and we have found answers to some of our questions.

If you have any questions, or would like us to show you anything specific in our blogs please get in touch 🙂