Submarines - more things to do with your power vote bottles

I did Submarines with J and our 3 yr old neighbor friend (not pictured) shortly after I took it to J's school for the 5 year olds last month.  However, because they were so young, I decided to assemble the submarines for them before we were going to play with science.  I made a few modifications.  I decided to use the cap with a hole drilled into it for the straw instead of clay since the clay didn't stick well for long water exposure (note cheap clay was used).  I also created a valley on the aluminum foil wrapped pennies for the rubber bands.  Next time, hot glue the rubber bands and penny stacks.  They still kept falling off.  Here's the final product:

Note the holes in between the rubber bands (3 total)
Use caution when making holes, we used an awl

Let the sub fun begin!

J tosses the sub into the water

Sink sub, sink

J demonstrates what the 5 year olds found out too - that these subs make good fountains, which is also ok since it's still science (pressure differences).

Scientist at work

Science is fun, but how often do you get to do science naked?

Eureka!

Our version of Sink/Float:

Sponges float

J sinks

Sponge Bob shoes float

Bouncy ball floats

Lessons learned: science with kids doesn't necessarily go as planned (see naked baby and fountain sub above).  The idea is to go with the flow and roll with what the kids show interest in.  The 5 year olds loved their sinking subs, but they also liked the fountain it created when pulled out of the water.  If there's a teaching moment you think they'd understand, go for it.  If not, congratulate them for experimenting as ask them if they know what's going on.  Re-direct their attention if you don't like where the experiment is going.


**Now I realize, that is not a Pepsi bottle featured in this article.  I apologize.  We did this experiment in the middle of July.  Yes, I had applied to the Refresh Grant by then, but I had no idea about the craziness of these power vote collections that is needed to win.  (so pass on a power vote code or two if you don't mind).

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Edited 6/30/13 to remove Pepsi Refresh Voting tag. Voting has long since ended.

P.S. I love you guys. Thanks for all of your support!