Learning About Mass 

& Volume

Helping Kids Learn about Mass & Volume

Adapted from Mass and Volume

Kids' early experiences with measurement are often based on watching their parents. Seeing mum or dad measure and pour ingredients for a recipe or weigh items at the fruit shop will often become part of their play.

What parents can do at home

• Give your child different sized plastic cups and a large plastic container to play with in the bath. Encourage your child to guess how many of each cup will be needed to fill the container.
• Talk about how many cups or teaspoons of each ingredient are used in a recipe when you are cooking together.
• Encourage your child to pack away their own toys and books. Talk about how things will fit better depending on the way they are stacked or placed.
• Make a sandpit from a large plastic tub so your child can fill various containers with sand. Sieves, colanders, plastic spoons and bottles, old margarine tubs and funnels are great for sand play.
• Count how many cups of dry pasta or popcorn are needed to fill a bowl.
• Fill a shoe box by stacking it with blocks, one layer at a time. Count how many blocks were needed for the first layer and then build more layers.
• ‘Hefting' is the balancing of an object in each hand and deciding which is heavier or lighter. This is a good way for children to compare the weight of objects.
• Drop different objects into a bucket of water or the bath to see which makes the biggest splash. Talk about why some things made a bigger splash than others.
• Show your child how you use kitchen scales to measure ingredients.
• Talk about how much your child weighed when they were born.
• Show where the weight of goods is recorded on food packets.
• Have your child help you weigh items when grocery shopping.
• Play on a see-saw and talk about how to make the see-saw go up, down or balance.

If you have any unused scales at home and would like to donate them to be used in classroom Maths lessons, please drop them in to the office or ask your child to deliver them to Mrs Chard.