📚 Learn🌱 Montessori-inspired🔬 STEM🧩 Problem solving
🛁 Sink or Float?
Guess first, then drop it in. Two piles at the end.
Ages
2–5
Duration
20 min
Cost
Free
👶 Kid challenge
Easy
🧑 Parent energy
Hands on · 3 min prep
⚠️ Safety first
Stay in the room. A few centimetres of water only, never leave water unattended, and use items too big to swallow.
You know your child best — supervise the whole time and skip anything that isn't right for them. See our Terms.
Why this is good for your child
- ✓Predicting
- ✓Sorting
🌱 Montessori-inspired · Early Math
What you need
Bowl of water5 household objectsTowel
How to do it
- 1Line up five objects beside a bowl of water.
- 2Guess each one before it goes in.
- 3Sort them into two piles: sank, floated.
How it actually goes
The honest version — including what "going well" looks like at this age.
- ⏱ 30-second set-up
- Thirty seconds: put bowl of water, 5 household objects, towel on a tray or a clear bit of floor, and sit down next to it before you call them over.
- 🧑 What you do
- Show it once, slowly, without talking over yourself. Then hand it over and stop helping unless they ask.
- 👶 What they do
- Line things up, count out loud, and notice what's the same.
- ✅ What success looks like
- At 2–3 they'll do it their own way, not yours, and stop after five minutes. Both of those are fine.
- 🧺 How to put it away
- Everything back into one basket or tray, carried back to its spot by them. Naming the spot out loud is what makes it stick.
- 📈 When they outgrow it
- Older? Count it, then ask how many there'd be with one more.