Week Seven - Travel - Science

Today is the day for air, water, and road experiments.

Air: You will need a balloon (get a couple, accidents happen and you wouldn't want the fun to end early because of a popped balloon), string, tape, and items of different weight. Blow up the balloon and attach the string. Have your child place the objects you gathered from around the house in order of lightest to heaviest. Attach the lightest one to the sting and see if the balloon caries it to the ceiling. Continue with each item and see if they were right about the weight. If you want, add another balloon to see how much more it can hold or see which item weighs more in a head to head.

Water: Will it float? You will need a large container for water (preferably outside - this gets wet) (a kiddie pool works well), waterproof items (or items you don't mind tossing after you play) and a record sheet for their hypothesis and actual outcome. Create the record sheet with your child - you draw the grid lines (I would suggest 5 - 7 rows, 3 columns [object, hypothesis, outcome]), then have them come up with the objects. Depending on time you can have them draw the object in the object column or you can write them in. This is a great time to work on beginning sounds and corresponding letters. Then have them guess if the object will sink or float. Record their guess and head outside to see the outcome. While they are placing the object in the water you record the outcome and talk about why that happened. This is a great time to talk about how boats stay afloat.

Roads: You will need objects that can be made into ramps (anything will do as long as it makes it easier  for cars to roll down hill - even a steep driveway), toy cars of all types (different wheels are best) and objects/textures found around the house (examples: towels, pencils, paper clips, cardboard, etc). Take the items to your ramp and start by rolling the chosen cars down the ramp without any items on it. Then add the items. Talk about how the speed and successful completion of the ramp changed based on what you added. Ask them if they would rather ride on a bumpy or smooth road. Talk about all the textures that real cars drive over.

This is sure to be a fun one, enjoy!