Who Sank the Boat? Cranberries!

We've long loved the book, "Who Sank the Boat?" by Pamela Allen . It's about a group of animal friends that decide to go for a row in the bay.  One by one get in a boat together...until the last one to get in...surprisingly, sinks the boat! 

Today I filled the sink with water, cranberries, and a toy boat. The cranberries and boat both floated, but could a boat be filled with cranberries and still float? Let's see...

How many cranberries will it take to sink the boat?

 Well, wouldn't you know the boat was large enough to hold all the cranberries I had and still float! Ok, so plan B.

I took 2 pieces of foil, one smaller than the other and placed them in the water.  They floated.  Then Little J piled cranberries on the smaller one and counted how many cranberries it took to sink the foil. 

He then made the prediction that the bigger piece would not sink when the same number of cranberries were placed on it and that it would take more to sink it. He was correct and it took just over twice as many to sink the larger piece of foil.

This is a good link to explain this experiment.

Of course all of this floating/sinking led to a discussion about how cranberries are grown and harvested.  Over this summer on our road trip with Nana, we visited Cape Cod and were able to see cranberry bogs.  However, it wasn't harvest time, so they weren't flooded yet.  We looked at pictures from this website.

This would probably make a fun water play bin for kids as well.  I think I'll let Sassyfras and Juiciness play with it when they get up from their naps.