Marvelous Monday! : Will it Float?

Have you seen the bit on The Late Show with David Letterman called Will it Float?  Well, we did our own version here at the library!  I gathered as much stuff as I could think of, and the kids took turns guessing whether the items would sink or float and tossing them in the water.

 

I had a wax candle, assorted balls (including a bowling ball!), an apple, oranges (both peeled and unpeeled), a lemon, a lime, wood and metal items, packing foam, tin foil, a pumice stone, assorted plastic items, two kinds of soap, and regular and diet soda. 

 

 

 

The kids were pretty good at guessing what would float and what would sink.  The peeled orange sank, while the orange with peel floated; the regular sodas sank, while the diet soda floated.  Although I had read that a bowling ball would float, ours sank like a rock!  You can't believe everything you read on the internet!

 

 

 

The object of Will it Float? of course, is to learn about density.  I'm not sure how much of that got across to the kids, but we sure had a lot of fun!

 

This was the last Marvelous Monday for the year.  We will start up again on January 5th, when the kids go back to school.