Friday, September 10, 2010

Foil Boats

Today we made aluminum foil boats to see if they would float.  They did.  The kids each made one and I made two so they could each have a second one.  After filling up a tub with water, I put it on the table and they set their boats to floating.  I then had them estimate how many pennies their boats could hold before sinking.  Sugar Plum guessed 10 so of course Tiger Boy guessed 10 too.

They started counting pennies as they filled their boats.  Sugar Plum's boat held 27 pennies before it sank.  Tiger boy piled on the pennies and sunk his boat on purpose so I don't know how many his would have held.  He just liked playing in the water.

Next they used the boats I made. They were both a little bigger and had deeper sides.  Sugar Plum estimated the second boat would hold 27 pennies like the first one.  She lost count as she was adding pennies so we counted them when she was done.  I had her put the pennies in piles of 10 to help her count them easier. Her boat ended up holding 79 pennies before it sank.  She was so excited that it held so many.

I think we may have to do this activity again in the future.  They both loved it.

1 comment:

  1. oo what a very fun activity! We will have to try this sometime soon :-)

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