• Search
  • About us
  • Jobs
  • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join Us
  • Wildlife
      • Local Wildlife
        • Wildlife Directory
      • Record Your Sighting
        • Nature Counts
      • Injured Animals & Emergencies
        • Local Wildlife Rescue Centres
        • Reporting Wildlife Crime
        • Wildfire safety advice
        • The Countryside Code
      • Image of Wildlife in Sheffield and Rotherham Reserve
        Wildlife in Sheffield and Rotherham

        Take a look, through some of the common species of wildlife that live in the South Yorkshire area around Sheffield and Rotherham.

  • Our Work
      • News
        • Conservation
        • Nature, Health & Wellbeing
        • Schools, Education & Outdoor Learning
        • Nature Reserves
        • Partnerships
        • Nature Recovery
        • Campaigning & Appeals
        • Events & Activities
        • Videos
      • Nature Recovery Programmes
        • Nature Based Solutions
        • Rotherham Rivers
      • Nature, Health & Wellbeing
        • Green and Blue Social Prescribing
        • Wild at Heart
        • Nextdoor Nature
      • Schools, Education & Outdoor Learning
        • Primary and Early Years
        • Secondary Schools
        • Further and Higher Education
        • Training and support
      • Evidence-led Conservation
        • What is Evidence-Led Conservation?
        • Working with Nature: Woodhouse Washlands
      • Partnerships
        • South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership
        • South Yorkshire Local Nature Partnership
        • Sheffield Street Tree Partnership
        • Sheffield Lakeland Partnership
      • Advice & Consultancy
        • Wildscapes
        • The BNG Hub
        • Land Management Advice Service
  • Nature Reserves
      • Nature Reserves in Sheffield
        • Blacka Moor
        • Carbrook Ravine
        • Carr House Meadows
        • Crabtree Ponds
        • Fox Hagg
        • Greno Woods
        • Moss Valley Woodlands
        • Salmon Pastures
        • Sunnybank
        • Wyming Brook
      • Nature Reserves in Rotherham
        • Woodhouse Washlands
        • Centenary Riverside
        • Kilnhurst Ings
      • Special Conservation Spaces
        • Agden Bog
        • Hammond’s Field
      • Nature Friendly Farming
        • Ughill Farm
      • Image of Fox Hagg Reserve
        Fox Hagg

        A recently extended patch of heathland and woodland, neighbouring Wyming Brook.

  • Events & Activities
      • What's On
        • Volunteer Work
        • Family Events
        • Guided Walks
        • Online Events
        • Workshops
        • View All Events
      • Activities
        • 30 Days Wild
        • Activities for Children
        • Activities for Adults
        • Nature Detectives!
  • Get Involved
      • Nature Recovery
        • Nature Recovery Community Toolkit
        • Nature Recovery Sheffield
        • Nature Recovery Rotherham
        • Sheffield Swift City
        • New Government Priorities for Nature
      • Volunteering
        • Volunteer with us
      • Campaigning for Wildlife
        • # Defend Nature
        • Action for Insects
        • Badgers and bTB
        • Birds of Prey
        • Go peat free!
        • Our Moors
        • Wilder Future
      • Image of Acorn Fund Reserve
        Acorn Fund

        Our Acorn Fund is a pot of money allocated specifically to help release money from the Landfill Communities Fund. Your donation can be the key to unlocking funding worth thousands of pounds to make a huge difference for local wildlife.

  • Support us
      • Become a Member
        • Individual Membership
        • Joint Membership
        • Family Membership
        • Gift a Membership
        • Renew your Membership
      • Corporate Partnerships
        • Corporate Membership
        • Wild Work Days
        • Employee Wellbeing Packages
      • Make a Donation
      • Appeals
        • Taking Action for Nature Appeal
        • Acorn Fund
      • A Gift in Your Will
        • A Gift in their Memory
        • How Gifts Can Help us
      • Image of Kingfisher Magazine Reserve
        Kingfisher Magazine

        Unveil the hidden world of insects in Sheffield & Rotherham with the newest issue of Kingfisher magazine.

  • Donate
  • Join Us
  • Online Shop
  • About us
  • Jobs
  • Wildlife
    • Wildlife Directory
    • Nature Counts
    • Local Wildlife Rescue Centres
    • Reporting Wildlife Crime
    • Wildfire safety advice
    • The Countryside Code
  • Our Work
    • News
      • Campaigning & Appeals
      • Conservation
      • Events & Activities
      • Nature, Health & Wellbeing
      • Nature Recovery
      • Nature Reserves
      • Partnerships
      • Schools, Education & Outdoor Learning
      • Videos
    • Nature, Health & Wellbeing
      • Wild at Heart
      • Green and Blue Social Prescribing
      • Nextdoor Nature
    • Evidence-led Conservation
      • What is Evidence-led Conservation?
      • Working with Nature: Woodhouse Washlands
    • Schools, Education & Outdoor Learning
      • Primary and Early Years
      • Secondary Schools
      • Further and Higher Education
      • Training and Support
    • South Yorkshire Woodland Partnership
    • South Yorkshire Local Nature Partnership
    • Sheffield Street Tree Partnership
    • Sheffield Lakeland Partnership
    • Nature Based Solutions
    • Rotherham Rivers
    • Wildscapes
    • The BNG Hub
    • Land Management Advice Service
  • Nature Reserves
    • Agden Bog
    • Blacka Moor
    • Carbrook Ravine
    • Carr House Meadows
    • Crabtree Ponds
    • Fox Hagg
    • Greno Woods
    • Hammond’s Field
    • Moss Valley Woodlands
    • Salmon Pastures
    • Sunnybank
    • Wyming Brook
    • Woodhouse Washlands
    • Centenary Riverside
    • Kilnhurst Ings
    • Ughill Farm
  • Events & Activities
    • What's On
    • Volunteer Work
    • Family Events
    • Guided Walks
    • Online Events
    • Workshops
    • 30 Days Wild
    • Activities for Children
    • Activities for Adults
    • Nature Detectives!
  • Get Involved
    • Volunteer with us
    • Nature Recovery
      • Nature Recovery Community Toolkit
      • Nature Recovery Sheffield
      • Nature Recovery Rotherham
      • Government Priorities for Nature
    • Sheffield Swift City
    • Campaigning For Wildlife
  • Support us
    • Become a Member
      • Individual Membership
      • Joint Membership
      • Family Membership
      • Gift a Membership
      • Renew your Membership
    • Make a Donation
    • Corporate Partnerships
      • Corporate Membership
      • Wild Work Days
      • Employee Wellbeing Packages
    • Appeals
      • Taking Action for Nature Appeal
      • Acorn Fund
    • A Gift in Your Will
      • A Gift in their Memory
      • How gifts help us
  • Home
  • Get Involved
  • Nature Adventures
  • Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!)
  • Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!) – Float or sink?

Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!) – Float or sink?

Join me on my quest to keep a toddler entertained in my garden and home, with nature as our inspiration, and with fun (and a bit of learning!) as our goal.

© dda916b1-88b8-49f4-b1e8-c459aa22534f
  • Campaigning For Wildlife
  • Green and Blue Social Prescribing
  • Local community groups
  • Nature Adventures
    • Activities for Adults
    • Activities for Children
    • Mini Expert Videos
    • Teatime teasers
    • Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!)
  • Nature Friendly Gardening
  • Nature Recovery Rotherham
  • Nature Recovery Sheffield
  • Planning Issues
  • Planning Issues
  • Sheffield Street Tree Partnership
  • Tree felling and wildlife protection
  • Volunteer with us
  • Wildlife Gardening

Join me on my quest to keep a toddler entertained in my garden and home, with nature as our inspiration, and with fun (and a bit of learning!) as our goal. My 2 and ½ year old will test out these simple and easy-to-do-at-home activities; we’ll let you know the results, and would love to hear how you get on, too. I’ll offer some Outdoor Learning Top Tips on how to adapt the activities for older children, and suggest what skills each activity helps you and your child explore. All the activities are simple, use mostly things you will find in and around your home, and will be free, and will hopefully help to keep you both entertained (and sane!) a they have done for me. Enjoy!

Float or Sink?
An activity that explores what items sink, and what items float, when put into water.

Skills:
Science
Exploration
Active Play
Language development
Memory

What you’ll need:
A container to hold water (see-through is best, but not a must)
A basket or box to collect things in
Items found in your garden and home (the possibilities are endless…)
Water

Optional:
A change of clothes and a towel!

Collect some small items from around the garden and/or your home (that you don’t mind getting wet) and gather them in a basket or box.

Fill your water container – it works really well if you can find a see-through one so you can watch things sink to the bottom – fill it with water, and get ready to experiment!

One by one, ask your toddler to drop an item in the water. See if they can tell you whether an item might float or sink before they put it in.

 

Top tips (that we learnt along the way):

  • Remove items from the water as you go – this helped us to focus more on the item being put in, rather than what was already in there.
  • Help to select a few items yourself, especially ones you know might give a surprising result – the real lemon worked great for us – it sank, and then slowly bobbed up and down before settling just below the surface.
  • For early or pre-talkers try to repeat phrases like ‘it sinks’ or ‘it floats’ rather than using a combination of sank, sunk, sink, etc. This will help them to grasp the concept more easily, and pick up the words if they are new to them.
  • Repeat the activity with the same items (adding more if you want) to see if your toddler can remember what each one does, and maybe even start to tell you.
  • Try the same activity at bath time (perhaps with different items!)

Oscar’s review:

Oscar loved collecting different items from around the garden, especially after being told we were going to drop them all into water.

Keeping him focused on collecting items was a bit challenging at times, but once the water container came out, he got really excited and proudly bought his basket of scavenged items over ready for the dunk.

Oscar definitely didn’t fully grasp the activity first time round, and didn’t readily use the words ‘float’ and ‘sink’ to describe what was happening. After taking them all out and starting again a couple of times, he was starting to predict/remember what each item does before dropping them in, and talking about it.

For older ones –

  • Have a go at predicting what each item might do before you put any in the water, and then record the results! Can you make a sinking item float? Or a floating item sink?
  • Can you select only items that will sink? Then only items that will float?

What we used:

Clothes peg
A lump of mud
A plastic lemon
A real lemon
Avocado stone
A rock
Pebbles
Small sticks
Piece of rotten wood
A lump of moss
A piece of bark
A large leaf

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Take Care,

Sarah x
Landscape Connections Project Officer

Get Involved

In This Section

  • Campaigning For Wildlife
  • Green and Blue Social Prescribing
  • Local community groups
  • Nature Adventures
    • Activities for Adults
    • Activities for Children
    • Mini Expert Videos
    • Teatime teasers
    • Nature Adventures with a Toddler (and beyond!)
  • Nature Friendly Gardening
  • Nature Recovery Rotherham
  • Nature Recovery Sheffield
  • Planning Issues
  • Planning Issues
  • Sheffield Street Tree Partnership
  • Tree felling and wildlife protection
  • Volunteer with us
  • Wildlife Gardening

Contact Us

Call us: 0114 263 4335

Find us: Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust, 37 Stafford Road, Sheffield S2 2SF

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
    • Nature Reserves
      • Nature Recovery Sheffield
      • Nature Recovery Rotherham
      • Nature Recovery Community Toolkit
    • Wildlife
      • Local Wildlife
      • Local Wildlife Rescue Centres
      • Reporting Wildlife Crime
    • About us
      • Who We Are
      • What We Do
      • Contact Us
      • Events & Activities
      • News
      • Work For Us
      • Wildscapes
      • The BNG Hub
    • Support Us
      • Become a Member
      • Corporate Support
      • Make a Donation
      • A Gift in Your Will
      • Kingfisher Magazine
    • Get Involved
      • Volunteer with us
      • Campaigning For Wildlife
      • Nature Recovery Sheffield
    • Online Shop
      • Online Shop Size Guides
      • Online Shop Delivery Information
      • Online Shop Terms, Delivery & Returns
  • © 2025 Sheffield & Rotherham Wildlife Trust
  • Registered in England Number 2287928. Registered Charity Number 700638.
  • Privacy Notice
  • Design By Ink & Water
Manage Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}