Miss Adams Kindergarten Blog: Boats and Measurement

This week we had so much fun diving into different forms of measurement, whether objects will sink or float and of course making boats. The students loved it and it made for great pictures :)

Boats

To start off our discussion about boats we discussed things that sink and float. We did a fun experiment to see which objects would sink or float and some students were surprised that heavy things could float and vice versa. From there we talked about the parts of a boat and how different types of boats move. After that I gave students materials to make their own boats. I had lots of students make very cool sails, some of which worked very well with the wind.

Then came the fun part. We went outside to test our boats. First we tested the boats in the water by themselves to see how we could get them to move. Then we did a penny measurement test to see how many pennies our boats could hold, and finally we tested them with plastic people for fun.

Measurement

In Kindergarten students learn about weight, height and length and capacity. This week we focused on all 3, but had students measuring height and length. This weeks measurement challenge was to measure lines that I put on the ground and to measure each other. The students had so much fun figuring out who the tallest kid was in the class and who the shortest is. Kids got to use both inch cubes and larger wooden blocks and it was fun to hear squeals of "you 66 cubes, I'm 64 cubes!" The students really enjoyed it and I loved seeing them practice their counting and help each other figure out the lengths of the lines and each other.