There's nothing my 3 year old loves more than science experiments...except maybe playing with water. In this activity, he was able to do both!
My little one and I started off by filling up a bucket with water (buckets purchased at the dollar store - I love a great deal!). Then we took a second bucket and went around the house looking for objects to experiment with. Of course we stayed away from things that would become damaged if submerged in water.
I then had my toddler pick up each object and predict whether or not it would sink or float before placing it in the water. I had to slow him down a few times because, being a 3 year old, he wanted to just start dumping the objects in the water. While I often allow my son to have open ended play in water, that wasn't the point of this particular activity.
After he made his predictions, he placed the object in the water and was thrilled when he was correct and surprised when he was wrong. It was adorable to watch!
After he made his predictions, he placed the object in the water and was thrilled when he was correct and surprised when he was wrong. It was adorable to watch!
We used 4 buckets all together. The first one was for the water and the second one was to hold all the items we wanted to experiment with. The other two buckets were placed on either side of the 'holding' bucket and were used to categorize the items after my little one experimented with them. Those items that would sink went in the yellow bucket and those that would float went in the red bucket. My toddler picked up on this idea rather quickly and would put an item in the water to see if it would sink or float then took it out of the water and placed it in the appropriate bucket. After the experiment was over, we then counted up how many items there were of each and talked about whether we had more items that would sink or more items that would float. It was a great way to work some math into the experiment as well!
Some of the objects we found around the house to experiment with were:
What other fun & easy experiments have you done with your toddler?
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- Legos
- Paper
- Toy car
- Plastic spoon
- Metal spoon
- Cotton ball
- Refrigerator magnet
- Chopsticks
- Hairbrush
- Paintbrush
- Crayon
What other fun & easy experiments have you done with your toddler?
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