Sink or Float?

On our walk back from releasing Sprinkles the fish into the pond by our house, the kids discovered some rocks. There were normal rocks, and there was pumice. I told them each to pick one of the types of rocks to bring home. They were very excited and hardly ever need encouragement to bring rocks home. Once we got home, I asked that they look through their treasure boxes for things from nature. They brought back a shell, fools gold, quartz, agate, 2 other normal rocks, pinecone, bead, and a marble. Okay, so not all of it was from nature, but it was a good variety of things. I got out a sheet of paper, and made a chart. We made predictions on if the item was going to float or sink. On some of the items, the kids were split, so I made sure I recorded that as well. After we were done with our predictions, we filled the kitchen sink up with warm water, and pulled up the chairs. Each kid was allowed to gently set their objects in one at a time, while I recorded what the outcome was. I have to say there were some surprises! We thought for sure the bead and pumice would float, but they didn't!

Afterwards we added a dry peach pit, a penny, and a wooden napkin ring and the only one to float out of those was the napkin ring. Again, shocked! The kids really enjoyed this experiment, and plus it was easy and cheap!!!