[NavyHusband]

DW was asked by DD's teacher to come teach for the GATI next week. DW is stuck on what to do for this because she's doing something related to the Navy, and the Navy has amazing resources for things like this, but not for a Kindergarten class.

She really wants to do a STEAM challenge where the students have to build a sailboat out of a water bottle cut in half, some pipe cleaners, and paper. The teacher has water tables so the kids could also race their boats by blowing on them. Do you think this is too advanced for a Kindergarten classroom?

[1956BD]

their eye hand coordination is not very good as it is still developing. It may be difficult for them to manipulate the supplies to make actually build a boat. What doesn't she ask the teacher what she thinks. He or she will have a better idea of what her classroom students can do.

If that idea does not work why not take several test items for each water table and allow students to test what floats and what does not float. They could first predict what they think will happen with each item. Then there could be two baskets to place the tested items in afterwards. Next they can look at all the things that did float and see what they have in common and draw some conclusions. If she does this she needs to be sure to get some pumice rocks which will float. The kids will be so surprised that a rock floats.

[SDT]

Here is a Build a Boat activity that might work a bit better with kindergarteners. http://www.ribbonsandrobots.com/littleboat/

You could easily modify this one by having containers in a variety of shapes and materials. Styrofoam bowls, plastic plates, cardboard boxes etc. She could go to Dollar Tree and get a variety of containers pretty cheaply. I love the part about adding the cars. In this case, it would be really fun to give each group an airplane to transport.

As a pp suggested, I would definitely do some talking and predicting before hand. Summarizing that on a chart or poster would be a great idea too.

[h0kie]

I used to have my kindergarteners make (and sink) foil boats as part of our sink & float unit.

They LOVED it.

[rana712]

we made little boats out of clay and used a toothpick and a small triangle for a sail. The clay needs to be molded into a bowl. Some of the boats sank... but that is what happens with an iffy design! You could also use bottle caps for little boats. I think that K kids would eat this up! And the design with the water bottles would work as well. Lots of times our STEAM challenges start with giving the kids a variety of materials and asking them to design something using trial and error.