Pirates need to know some science, especially what can float and what will sink. Playing with water is great kindergarten readiness fun and learning for kids and pirates.
Exploring what floats and what sinks will happen as kids play with a variety of items. Your pirate’s ocean can be a water table, bin of water, big bowl, the bathtub or the kitchen sink. Treasures for floating and sinking can be bottle caps, jar lids, wooden blocks, popsicle sticks, cups, small bottles, clean rocks and more. Kids often like to drink the water so small items are not good choices for young children. Some do not even mind soap bubbles! Some children discover on their own that they can put small items inside another container and it will still float. It’s great fun to add one more item at a time and watch the water getting closer and closer to the top until it rushes over and the container sinks.
This exploration is what science is all about and it occurs as children play. Kids are carefully watching what happens–observation. They do the same actions over and over again–testing. They remember the results of their actions and make their own “theories” such as flat things float but then they try something flat that sinks and so they play some more–experimenting. Parents and caregivers can ask questions about floats and sinks to give children the opportunity to talk about what they are discovering. In science, that’s called reporting. And all this is child’s play. Do you agree it’s no wonder, play is a treasure for kids?