We have been exploring transportation and of course, boats were on the list.
I didn’t have any toy boats but no worries – we discovered that there are other materials that can float across the water.
Making Our Boats
The children used Styrofoam trays for their “boats”. Our “river” was quite congested at times with all the boating traffic.
Before adding our Styrofoam boats, we talked about what might float and what might sink in the water. I set out some of our “math tokens” for the children to test in the water.
Oh and in case you are wondering what the white stuff is floating around in the water – that is “snow” that we had leftover in the tub from our snow globe sensory. Â The kids didn’t want to wait for me to rinse all the snow out so we had snowy water.
Discovering What Floats and Sinks
We discovered that our plastic lids can float but our cars and the seashells sank to the bottom of the tub.
To help the cars float across the river, we discovered that the cars could be placed on top of our boats and they wouldn’t sink.
I’m glad I never stopped to pick up any toy boats because these Styrofoam trays actually made great boats and they were great for exploring what sinks and floats!