Will it float or sink? How to plan science play activities for infants and toddlers

The floating and sinking experiment is a representative children's science activity in which infants and toddlers explore the properties of objects by predicting whether various objects will float or sink before putting them in water and checking them by putting them in. The preparation is simple and the results are visible right in front of your eyes, so it's great for attracting the curiosity of infants and toddlers and helping them naturally develop a scientific attitude toward predicting and confirming.

In this article, we will organize new ways to organize activities, the thoughts children form, differences by age, and the order of writing an activity plan.

Why do floating and sinking activities?

Infants and toddlers are like little scientists who are endlessly curious about the things around them and learn about them by touching and putting things in. The floating and sinking activity takes advantage of this tendency and allows children to experience asking questions and finding answers on their own. For adults, this phenomenon is explained by buoyancy and density, which are the forces that push an object upward by the weight of the water it pushes out, but for infants and toddlers, the experience of putting things in and comparing them multiple times is more important than memorizing the concept.

When writing the purpose of an activity, if you focus on the attitude of inquiry, such as feeling the joy of predicting and confirming rather than teaching scientific knowledge, it becomes a plan suitable for an activity for infants and toddlers.

Why do children think they float?

Four- to five-year-old children try to explain the reasons for floating and sinking by setting their own standards, such as, “When you get older, you sink,” “If it’s heavy, it sinks,” “If it’s empty, it floats,” “If it contains air, it floats.” Even if the explanation is wrong in the eyes of an adult, it is a valuable attempt to find rules based on observations. The process of a child correcting his or her thoughts through direct experience is Piaget This can be explained by assimilation and accommodation as mentioned in cognitive development theory.

If you write down exactly what the child said in the observation record, it becomes a good resource for comparing how the child's thoughts have changed later.

차이를 외울 때는 한 단어 키워드로 줄여 두면 시험장에서 바로 떠오르더라고요. 표 뒤에 해석 문장 두세 줄을 붙여 두면 훨씬 읽기 좋은 것 같아요.

How should I organize activities?

In the introduction, we show a ping pong ball and ask them to raise their hands to predict whether it will float or sink, and check together. In development, children are encouraged to freely put objects of different sizes and materials, such as candles, rocks, clay, crayons, and balls, into small groups. If you add activities that involve changing the shape of the same object, such as changing clay into a ball shape and a boat shape, children can discover for themselves that weight alone is not the explanation. At the end, we recall what we saw and talk about what rose and what sank.

As this is an activity that uses water, place a mat to prevent the floor from being slippery, and be sure to write down safety precautions in your plan, such as not putting small objects in your mouth.

How are infants and toddlers different?

Infants have the characteristic of focusing for a long time on an object that they can touch with their hands and receive an immediate response in front of their eyes. Therefore, it is appropriate for infants to organize activities around sensory play such as putting things in and out of water and splashing around rather than making predictions. On the other hand, children can make predictions and explain reasons verbally, so activities such as prediction, confirmation, and classification can be included. Even with the same materials, it is important to set activity goals and teacher questions differently depending on age.

If you organize the differences by age in a table, you can use them in observation or comparison tasks, thus broadening their use.

How do I write the activity plan and teacher questions?

In the activity plan, write down the activity name, target age, activity goals, elements related to the Nuri course, preparations, introduction, development, and conclusion, points to keep in mind, and evaluation. I like the teacher's questions to be open-ended questions that make the child make predictions again, such as why did you think that way, what will happen this time, or what if the shape changes. Campus-like floating and sinking science activity report is good to refer to when setting the flow of tasks in the early childhood science education plan. If you replace the materials with those in the classroom, it becomes a more realistic plan. In your evaluation, include an item to write down whether you observed the moment your child changed their prediction.

After completing the activity, you can continue with the children's sorting activity by dividing what floated and what sank into two baskets. If you draw a picture of the results and post it on the classroom wall, the children will talk about it again and again, so the exploration does not end in one day but continues naturally.