LIGHT THINGS FLOAT ON WATER: WE LEARNT BY DOING

It has been very  long since I blogged but yesterday my boy and I did something which got me so excited that I cannot help but share it with all of  you. Summer is around and Utkarsh is busy playing with his neighborhood pals.  The other day when I stepped out, they all rushed to me excitedly to tell that they made an experiment. They told me that they turned our faucets outside and found that if flowed into the drain. I know it doesn't sound  so much like an experiment but the fact that they discovered something by doing was very exciting. It reminded me that science is best learned by doing. I wanted to do something with Utkarsh and this is what we did.

I wanted Utkarsh to understand that light things will float on water. I asked Utkarsh to collect things like sticks, leaves, feather, small rocks, marbles and anything else that he found interesting. He wore his cap and stepped out. He brought a treasure trove with him but it did need a lot of cajoling to bring him back  inside the house. I kept a container of water. I asked him to drop a leave first. Then we dropped a stick, feather and a piece of paper. It all floated on top of water. Then we dropped a rock. However hard he tried, the rock kept going down. He was trying to see if the rock would float if he tried putting it in the container from a different angle. He gave up and then we dropped a marble and even a lego block. All of them obviously went down. Once we did this, we sat down to discuss. I gave him the leaf and rock. I asked him which he thought is lighter. He first told me that he actually was so strong that both were light for him. I had to explain that we are comparing the two and I understood well that he was indeed very strong and smart.  So finally we agree that the leaf was lighter than the rock. We kept comparing one light and one heavy object. Finally we arrived at the conclusion that lighter things will float and heavy things will come down.

Utkarsh was proud of this scientific discovery and Mamma was happy that she could be a part of this "experiment".