🧽 Which soaks up the most: a sponge, a paper towel or a cloth?

My hypothesis

If I change what soaks it up, then how many spoonfuls it holds before it drips will ______, because ______.

🔊 You fill in the blanks. Think about what each one looks like up close: where could the water hide? A guess is a good because: the test finds out.

Change, measure, keep the same

Scientists call the thing you change the independent variable and the thing you measure the dependent variable. The things you keep the same are the controls: if one of them changed too, you wouldn't know which change made the difference. Try each of the 3 levels 3 times.

What you need

• 🧽 A sponge or cloth, for wiping up
• 🧻 Paper towels
• 👕 A cotton T-shirt or tea towel: a tea towel or an old T-shirt
• 🥄 A spoon
• 🚰 Water from the tap
• 🍽️ Small plates or saucers, all the same: 1
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers

Steps

1. Lay the sponge flat on the plate.🔊
2. Grown-up: Your grown-up drips water on it, one spoonful at a time.🔊
3. You count the spoonfuls out loud. Say stop when it drips onto the plate.🔊
4. Grown-up: Your grown-up squeezes it out, and you test it two more times.🔊
5. Test the paper towel three times, then the cloth three times.🔊
6. Colour a box for every spoonful. Which one held the most?🔊

2 steps are a grown-up's, marked above. Write each number down straight away, in the table below, so nothing is lost.

Your results table

Write each try's number in its box. Then draw a bar graph, one bar for each thing you tried.

Why it works

🔊 A sponge, a paper towel and a cloth are all full of tiny holes and gaps. The one with the most room inside holds the most before it starts to drip.

Going further (7th and up): Change a second thing: test each one folded in half as well as flat.

My picture board

A kindergarten board is one page: the question, a guess to tick, a drawing of the test, a box coloured for each count, and what your child found out, in their words. Glue it to a folded card, or the middle of a tri-fold.

Board layout

This project at your grade

From 4th grade up, the table gets a mean column. See every project for kindergarten, or print a blank results table.

What a judge will ask

• What did you change, and what did you measure? I changed what soaks it up and measured how many spoonfuls it holds before it drips, in spoonfuls.
• What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? I kept the same spoon and the same size of each one the same, so the only difference was what soaks it up.
• How many times did you test it? 3 times at each of my 3 levels.
• If you did it again, what would you change or test next? I'd test each one folded in half as well as flat.

Make it yours

Keep this project on this device and Peabody counts down to your fair day, with a plan for each day. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Try next

• 🧻 Which paper towel soaks up the most water?1st–5th grade · 1 day of testing · free🧪 Water, ice and mixing · 🧂 Kitchen things
• 🧊 Which ice cube melts first: in the sun, in the shade or inside?kindergarten · 1 day of testing · free🧪 Water, ice and mixing · 🧂 Kitchen things