Over the last couple of weeks we have been using measurement in it’s many different forms; children have explored informal ways of measuring length, area, capacity and weight. Measurement is a fantastic way to help children understand and apply number concepts. It gives a practical use for counting, counting in groups, making predictions, checking and reasoning and even developing early skills of multiplication…eg if a pencil weights the same as two blocks then 3 pencils should weigh the same as 6 blocks. It also applies to the real world, as children have many experiences of measuring in their everyday life, such as a visit to the green grocers!
In addition, these investigations and practical activities have also build up the children’s vocabulary and understanding of measurement concepts such as longer/shorter, heavy/light, full/empty and other concepts such as heavy objects not having to be the biggest and comparing and contrasting how things of different shape and size can have different capacities and weights.
If you find your child filling your shoes with blocks then you will understand that they are finding the capacity of your shoe! We used our shoes amongst other things to measure area, capacity and weight.
The children had lots of fun trying to guess which creatures made these footprints which they then measured the area of using counters!
You can help to reinforce this learning at home by involving your child in real life measuring tasks around the house, such as cooking/baking preparation, DIY jobs, gardening and filling water cans etc, weighing yourself on scales, measuring growth of height or feet in siblings or family members and helping with measuring when at the supermarket.