Measurement Fun!

This is such an easy activity, I sometimes forget to get the stuff out! Joy and I have been measuring lots of things lately, including her kitten and the trees in the National Geographic insert (which are huge, btw!). I want Joy to explore all kinds of measurement, so we began weighing things and exploring volume.

Most of measurement is fun, but finding volume or capacity is the best! We gathered some measuring cups and spoons, a funnel, and some random containers. I put some water into a small plastic tub and we played on the table, since it's too cold to play with the water outside.

At first, I just let Joy explore pouring, overflowing, splashing, funneling, and other fun stuff. Then I started asking her guiding questions. Here are a few of them:

1. Which one holds more water?
2. Can all of that water fit in here?
3. How would you get water into this skinny container?
4. How many teaspoons of water can fit in here?
5. Does this container hold a whole cup of water?
6. How can you find out how much water this container holds?

Some of her explorations were quite careful, and some were quite impulsive. I wasn't out to have Joy know how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon! My purpose was for her to explore the volumes of known- and unknown-capacity containers. In other words, I just wanted her to know that we can measure the capacity of a container, and that we might use teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, etc. to do so.

Using the funnel turned out to be quite a bit of fun! Joy hadn't used one for a while and didn't remember what they do. She was quite intrigued by the tall skinny purple container and wanted to put water into it. She tried pouring water into it, but was frustrated. I suggested that she use the funnel, and after some fumbling, she came up with the method shown on the right. Then she used the funnel for every container!

We left the materials on the table for several days so Joy could play, and she did. These experiences are crucial to developing vocabulary and understanding of not just measurement, but of our world!