Math · Kindergarten to Grade 3–4
Keep the boat level
Load the boat so it floats level, and find that far out tips it more.
A rowing boat waits by the shore with its water jars. Your child loads every jar so it floats level, and the boat leans as they go. At first the jars are all the same; then big and small jars, near the middle and far out; then weights and seats with numbers.
- Kindergarten to Grade 3–4
- 10 min
- Nothing to prepare
- On the screen
Free to sign up.
Is it a good fit?
- Ready if Your child can count to five and match two groups.
- Too much today? Start with Half for you, half for me: the same on each side, shared out, before the boat leans.
- Too easy? The Grade 3–4 level: weights and seats with numbers, and weight times seat on each side.
What your child practises
- The same on each side
- A small weight far out balances a big one near the middle
- Weight times distance
“I'll put the small one far out.”
If your child says something like this, in their own words, the idea has landed. Finishing the rounds means they took part; this is the learning.
Your part
- Nothing to prepare
- Each question has a Read it to me button
- At the youngest step, sit with your child for the first boat
Take it off the screen (optional)
Balance a ruler on a pencil and put coins on it: two near the middle on one side, one far out on the other.
More like this
The full design
What it is
A small rowing boat, seen from behind, takes water jars to an island. Your child puts every jar aboard so the boat floats level, and the boat leans as they go, to the side that turns it more. A jar far out turns it more than the same jar near the middle, which is the whole game, found by doing it.
How it goes
Your child taps a jar on the shore and then a seat, and the jar goes aboard; the boat leans or settles. A tap on a seat lifts a jar off it again, so any jar can move. When every jar is aboard and the boat floats level, the round is won; a full boat that tips says which side and what to try. Some boats have one way to level, some have several. Five boats, then a card that says what was done.
The Pet
Asks as each boat comes in: "Big jars and small ones. Where does each go?" Notices what made it level: "Far out turns it more." Dares the next kind of boat, played there and then; at the top, a ruler on a pencil at home.
By band
K: jars all the same, one bench on each side, some tied on already; the same number on each side. 1–2: big jars and small ones, a seat near the middle and one far out on each side; a small jar far out balances a big one near the middle. 3–4: jars that weigh 1 to 4 and seats 1 to 3 from the middle, both written on them, and each side's weight times seat written beside the boat.
What it grows
Children judge a balance by weight alone at first, and only later see that distance counts too; a beam they can load and watch is how the second idea arrives.
Done, and what counts as evidence
Done = five boats loaded level. Nothing here is scored. "Far out tips it more", said in your child's own words, is the observation worth keeping.
What's personal
The boat is the landing boat from the storybook The Island That Sneezed, and the jars are the island's water. At home the jars can be anything: coins on a ruler, toys on a seesaw.