Kindergarten Sinks Wood!

Kindergarteners already know a lot about wood!  They know what wood looks, feels like and that it changes color when it gets wet.  They also know that wood floats.  Our newest challenge is...how to make the wood sink!

Our supplies are a bin of water, two wood samples, paper clips and rubber bands.  How can we use those items to make the wood samples sink to the bottom of the bin?

We came up with the idea to put the rubber band on the wood and put the paper clips under the rubber band!

My wood is still floating!

Some of the paper clips are all connected.

For the wood to sink, it has to be on the bottom!

Adding more paper clips.

I think this might sink!

Yes!  It is sinking!

I need more paper clips!

We did it!

Look at all the paper clips.  I think it's going to sink!

We need more paper clips! 

Attached paper clips can be so hard to get undone!

The paper clips fell off!

A technique that seemed to work was putting paper clips
on all four sides of the wood.

In the end, most of the classes were able to sink their wood samples.  As a challenge, students tried to figure out if both wood samples needed the same number of paper clips to make it sink.  The results were mixed, but many agreed that the pine wood needed more paper clips than the plywood.