Math Monday! Exploring Capacity.

Today we will explore capacity. 
 Capacity is the amount that a container can hold.

We learn about capacity by doing hands-on activities all year! At school, we spend a lot of time in our outdoor sandbox and at our water table or water bead table or sand table. At home, perhaps you have a sandbox, but capacity can also be explored freely in the bathtub or sink with cups and bowls. 

Part 1
(all you need is a paper and pencil/crayons/markers for this part)

If you were going to fill up this wading pool with water, 

 

 what  container would you use?

The cup or the bucket?

Why did you choose that container? (explain why to your parent) 

Words to Review
more than
less than
equal (the same as)

Find your water bottle! 
Draw and label something that you think would hold more water than your water bottle. You can use your imagination. It does not have to be something that you have at home. 


Part 2 (maybe another day)
(parents - for this part we need a variety of cups or containers - a small cup, a tall cut and a medium wider cup, and more if you have them. We also need water (or dried beans - see below), and maybe a tray, a pan or a bin to work over - you could do this in the bathtub at bathtime!). Plastic containers and cups will work well -- I don't have plastic cups at home so I am showing glass ones :)

Ms. Brown is really thirsty! Which cup should she use? Why? 

(your child might have said that the taller cup holds more because it is bigger) I checked by filling the taller glass up with water and pouring it into the shorter glass. It filled the shorter glass and there was still water left in the tall one. I coloured the water so you could see it better! 

Now which cup should she use? 

 This can be tricky! Both of these cups hold the same amount of water. I checked by pouring one glass of water into the other one, and the water filled each glass up almost to the top. Both of these cups hold the same amount of water! Sometimes, shorter and wider holds the same as or more than taller and thinner.

It is hard for me to show you this in pictures, so you should experiment at home!


Take a tall narrow cup and a shorter wider cup and pour the water from one to the other. Do they fit the same amount of water? Try different cups. You could put them in order from the one that holds the least water to the one that holds the most water.



Parents! If you can, use dried beans for this! It is easier to scoop them. The beans can be rinsed off later, before you cook them.