24/10/2026
🎃 A pumpkin, a swimming pool and a whole lot of learning!
This week we have been exploring pumpkins! There’s been plenty of laughter, but also plenty of physics: buoyancy, weight, balance, movement and resistance.
A pumpkin feels heavy on poolside, but what happens when we put it in the water? Does it float? Can we push it under? Can we keep it there?
A floating pumpkin pushes back when we try to submerge it. The more of it we push beneath the surface, the more water it displaces and the greater the upward force becomes. Children can feel that happening, even if they don’t yet have the words to explain it.
We’ve explored whether holding a pumpkin helps us sit on the bottom in the shallow area. If that pumpkin floats, it actually makes staying down harder! Something that feels heavy out of the water can pull us upwards when it’s submerged.
And what happens when we lift it above the water? We lose the water’s support for the pumpkin and have to carry its weight ourselves. When we’re floating on our backs, raising it towards or above our heads changes our balance, too. Suddenly, our kicking and body position need to adjust.
We’ve rolled pumpkins between each other, kicked on our front and backs with them and experimented with lifting, pushing and balancing. Along the way, children are practising coordination, judging force and discovering how their bodies respond in water - they make wonderful things to investigate 🎃
PS they all came with a warning: keep the pumpkin away from your face! They are real and will hurt!
