Fruit Bobbing

After the children return from school, they want to play and watch TV. I decided to play fruit bobbing instead to get them to eat their 5 a day as they didn’t have any fruit in school today. I think this is a fun way to get them to eat it.

Firstly, I filled up a small basin of water and places two apples in it. Apples are less dense than water so they will float at the surface.

Mr K tried to catch one with his teeth but resorted to cheating by using his hands.  He took a bite and threw it back in.  A cheeky monkey he is!  Even after much encouragement, Ms C refused to put her head into the water.

In the end, I decided to throw in all the fruits from my fruit basket into the basin to teach them which fruits will float or sink. All the fruits shown below floats like pears, oranges, apples and satsumas. We didn’t have any small fruits like grapes nor big fruits like melon to show the children. It was not a great experiment but at least they were shown that some fruits do floats. I tried to explain to the children that some fruits had skin or spaces inside the fruits contains air which makes it floats. While some small fruits had thin skin and no air trap inside the fruits, it sink. It was not very easy to explain it to a 3 and 4 year old children. Mr K asked then why apple with thin skin float. He could not understand that apples are made up of a lot of air.

In the end, they prefer to throw the fruits into the water and let it splash than understand the facts. What a great way of creating fun for them!

There is a website that I would highly recommended for more science experiments: All for Kids. They are very easy to follow and they shown you the step-by-step guide with explanations.