Floating Facts: Sink or Float True or False

Six numbered sentences fill this 2nd grade page, each followed by two buttons, true and false. A shelf at the top shows seven labeled pictures: a nail, a feather, a log, a potato, a pumpkin, a ship and an apple. On the sheet shown the sentences are: a heavy pumpkin floats; some heavy things float; all light things float; a steel ship sinks; a feather sinks; an apple floats, but a potato sinks. The child reads each one and circles true or false. Three are true and three are false, and the false ones are the beliefs children bring with them.

The shelf is there so that every sentence can be checked against something on the page. The log and the pumpkin are heavy and float, which settles some heavy things float; the nail is small and light and still sinks, which is the proof against all light things float. The ship answers the steel ship sentence, and the apple and the potato are the pair to argue about, since both are round, both are food and only one floats. Asking children to point at the picture that proves each answer turns a quiz into a science conversation.

One sheet, six circles. It works well the day after the scale page or the change the shape page, when children have seen things float and sink with their own eyes, and it can also stand alone because the evidence is drawn on the shelf. Read the sentences aloud for children still building reading stamina. Any sentence that splits the class is a question worth testing with a tub of water at the front of the room.