
Floating and sinking – Te tere me te totohu Activity
Provide a safe place for tamariki to play with things that float and sink in water.
Why do it?
So that tamariki can:
- enjoy a play and learning activity indoors or outside
- have an opportunity to predict and test ideas
- experience the fun and soothing effects of water play
- strengthen expressive language by building their vocabulary of terms related to floating, sinking and water play.
How to do it
- Make sure the situation is safe for your tamaiti. Water play needs close supervision at all times.
- You’ll need some water in a container — for example, a bath, basin, bowl, bucket, puddle or rock pool.
- You’ll need things to test — ask your tamaiti to help collect some nearby things that are okay to get wet.
- Items from home could be a wooden block, a plastic lid, a peg, a cork, a sock, a metal spoon, a flower or some leaves.
- At the beach you could collect small stones, shells, sticks, feathers, pumice, some seaweed or leaves.
- Have them hold each thing one at a time and ask them what they think will happen when they put it into the water.
- Ask them, ‘Why do you think that happened?’
- Try all the things you collected to see what floats and what sinks — you could help them to group the items.
- If your tamaiti is still interested, you can think and talk about what the things that float or sink have in common with each other.
- If you’re playing in a bucket, bowl or a bath, explore what happens to the water level when something big sinks to the bottom. If you can make a mark on the bucket before and after, you can measure the difference the sinking object makes to the water level. This is called ‘water displacement’.
- In the bath, notice what happens to the water level when someone gets in (and out) of the water.
- Share picture books such as, Who Sank the Boat?, Mr Archimedes’ Bath and Alexander’s Outing, all by Pamela Allen.
Using more reo Māori
Te reo Māori | English |
---|---|
Ka taea e te [...] te tere? | Will the […] float ? |
E kore te [...] e tere? | The […] won’t float |
Ka taea te [...] te totohu? | Will the […] sink ? |
E kore te [...] e totohu | The […] won’t sink |
Tāpu | Bath |
Pākete | Bucket |
Tōhihi | Puddle |
Peihana | Basin |
Kumete | Bowl |
Papawai | Paddling pool |
Kōhatu | Stone |
Angaanga | Shell |
Rākau | Stick |
Awe | Feather |
Rimurimu | Seaweed |
Rau | Leaf |
Rākau mataono | Wooden cube |
Kirihou taupoki | Plastic lid |
Tīmau kirihou | Plastic peg |
Tīmau rākau | Wooden peg |
Takawiri | Cork |
Pune | Spoon |
Ka taea e te awe te tere | The feather can float |
E kore te awe e totohu | The feather won’t sink |
Ka totohu te kōhatu | The stone will sink |
E kore te kōhatu e tere | The stone won’t float |