Without water there is no life. Kids, as like adults, are faced with water in various forms every day. We need it for bare survival and also for leisure activities and play. Since it is a precious substance, we need to handle it carefully and teach the children to rationally consume it already in the preschool age. Kids enjoy playing with water and on us, professional workers, is to navigate them through play so they also learn from experience with it.
For my diploma thesis I was exploring how much children know about the sinking and floating of everyday objects, but I've also met adults who didn't know, for example, why ships float. To help developing the understanding about this phenomena, I prerared some activities which enable to learn about floating and sinking through experience.
My thesis consists of two parts, theoretical and practical. In theoretical part I am presenting laws of physics, relevant for floating and sinking. I am also presenting child's development in preschool age. I focused mainly on two authors, Jean Piaget and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky. Their theories are partly similar and opposite in some aspects.
In practical part I report about research I made in Vzgojnovarstveni zavod Radovljica. I focused on science activities, which I developed for kids to understand sinking and floating and analyse the impact on their understanding of the phenomena. According to their satisfaction, I think we should use water for science activities more often. I also wish that the proposed activities help professional workers in kindergartens to use play with water to develop some skills and scientific understanding of the laws of nature with kids.
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