Our experiment starts with Nick.
Nick had a Lego boat and a leaf in his “About Me Box.” When he shared with the class, he said: “I like this leaf because it is red and it can swim in the water. My Lego boat can swim too. They will move along and not break in the water.” This made us wondered: would they both swim if we put them into water? What about other stuff? Will they sink or float? Alex made a connection that he had done a similar experiment at home with his Lego boat that ‘both would float. Today we decided to see for ourselves what would happen.
Each student chose one item from the classroom to see if it would sink or float and we went outside with a big tub of water to do our experiment.
https://animoto.com/play/dx1wbqAeL4cSETHL00pM2Q
Mrs. Zurfluh: “What did you noticed?”
KZE noticed that “Some things float and some things sink.”
Mrs. Zurfluh: “Why do you think that happen?”
Altai: “Big things sink and small things float.”
Alex: “If that is true then why do boats float? They are very big.”
Nick: “Rocks will sink because they are small.”
Alex: “If things are big they have more weight and can stay up. When they are small they don’t have weight so sink.’
Altai, Safir and Alexandra agreed with this.
Gabi did not agree: “Some small things can float and some big things can sink. Heavy things sink.”
Alex does not agree: “Then why do boats not sink? They are very heavy!”
Tim: “Some big things have things inside that stop them sinking.”
Ada: “Things that float are made of special materials.”
Veronika: “Some are heavy and sink. Some are not heavy and float.
Julia: “Big things can float. Small things can sink.”
Amie: “Things that sink don’t have feet.”
Mrs. Zurfluh: “How can we find out?”
Alexandra: “We measure things to see if they will float or sink.”
Amie: “We can do more experiments.”
Alex: “I looked for information on why things float on my dad’s phone.”
Safir: “We can look on the computer.”
Altai: “We can watch TV.”
Tim: “Books. Sometimes people look at boats and then write what they find out.”
We posted our question “Why some things sink and some things float?” on our wonder wall. We are waiting to see if it will spark more inquiry in KZE.
We are so proud ! they are working really hard .
Thanks for sharing us .
They are very lucky to be in KZE.
I remembered my times when i was small & little.
p.s it was very fun!
Ada’s sister
I really enjoyed watching that video and seeing Altai and all his classmates learning so many new things like what makes some things float and some things sink.
Altai says: “I wish I could stay in this KZE class for all of my 3 years in Moscow!”
Altai asked me to comment that he loves seeing all of the things floating and sinking. He was really proud of the video and what the class is doing! He says, “All of my classmates love school and we like looking at the books. And playing the game ‘cookie.’ I like doing writing.”