Sunday, July 18, 2010

Water Balloon Science

While we were playing with water balloons the other day, I asked C and R how they thought we could make the biggest splash.  I introduced them to the word "hypothesis"; I do not expect them to remember it, but I will bring it up again soon.

Will a water balloon make a bigger splash when dropped on the driveway from a short distance or a greater distance?  C and R both guessed that the balloon dropped from higher up would create a bigger splash.  When I asked them why, R said that it would drop more and C agreed with her.  This science experiment was far from perfect and controlled.  Our balloons were not filled with the same amount of water; I just tried to find two balloons that appeared to be similar in fullness.  We also did not measure the heights from which we dropped the balloon.  This was all just a little bit of fun.


R placed two hula hoops in the driveway.  We dropped one balloon from just a few feet into a hula hoop, and dropped the second balloon into the other hula hoop while standing on a step stool.  They were very happy to discover that they guessed correctly; they were also surprised by how much bigger the splash was from a higher dropping point!

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6 comments:

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

What a great experiment - perfect combination of fun and learning. I enjoyed reading about it :)

Ticia said...

Nice. We'll have to give that one a try. I've been thinking a water day of some sort would be fun.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

That's a great way to introduce the idea of a hypothesis. I doubt they'll forget what the term means, now.

Debbie said...

I love this! Don't be surprised if they don't remember what hypothesis means. Selena uses it regularly when we are talking science experiments.

Teacher Tom said...

Dropping things off ladders is always fun, especially when it splats!

We've dropped pumpkins and glass vases and bags of flours, but for some reason we've never thought of water balloons. Guess we're going to have a wet tomorrow!

Valerie @ Inner Child Fun said...

LOVE it!! We had a fun water game going on here today too. :-)