Monday, September 26, 2011

Why DO ice cubes float?

The solid form of almost all liquids is typically more dense, and an easy way to learn about liquids, density and mass is to save those two-liter pop bottles and get creative.  Not to mention just about any other subject you are introducing your kids to.  I find that if I fill the day with worksheets, mine do not stay engaged and learningg, but end up just limping along through the activity (the whole reason I am home schooling to begin with to avoid this and instill a love of learning.)

I keep a handful of them under my kitchen sink and have a book I refer to this great book for tons of ideas that are inexpensive and fun!

Today we filled a clean pop bottle about three-quarters full of water and drew a line at the fill mark.  We froze the bottle overnight, upright and measured the difference the next day.  My Kindergartner thought this was pretty cool and not only did we take a simple question about why ice floats and turn it into an opportunity to learn, we incorporated math, measurement, estimation, prediction and already had the supplies readily available.

No comments:

Post a Comment