Patricia Bentham, author, kindergarten-lessons.com
Teaching Measurement
When teaching measurement to young children provide lots of opportunities for the students to order objects by size. Use everyday activities and real objects to help children understand measurement concepts.
The terms non-standard and standard are often used when describing prescribed learning outcomes for measurement.
Measuring with non-standard units means measuring things with blocks, pencils, hands, feet, etc. As long as the items used to measure with are all the same size, e.g. identical blocks or brand new pencils, they are suitable to use.
Measuring with standard units means measuring with inches, feet, yards, centimeters or meters, using rulers and other measuring devices.
For a detailed how to teach a measurement activity, see the example half way down on "Teaching kindergarten and preschool math" page.
Teaching measurement - Area
A fun activity is to find two flat objects which look the same but are different sizes.
Cover them with unifix cubes and count how many blocks it takes to cover each one.
In this example, I found an enormus leaf about 7 inches long on a walk. I searched for a similar leaf that was very small but the same shape.
The children sat around the leaves and took turns placing unifix cubes on top of the leaves and counting them as a group. They then recorded their observations.
Teaching Measurement - Volume
A water center is the best way to let children have experiences with measuring volume. Build children's vocabulary as they experiment with pouring water into taller, shorter, narrower, and wider containers.
"Did the narrow, tall container hold the same amount of water as the wide, short one?"
Teaching Measurement - Time
Young children think of time as morning and night, longer days and shorter days, school days and weekends, story time and snack time. .
Some things take longer to do, other things take a shorter amount of time to complete. Children need to understand this concept before they tackle hours, minutes and seconds.
Children can learn that clocks and calendars are tools to help us keep track of time and are useful when planning events and activities.
A fun activity is to wipe the chalkboard with a damp cloth on a hot day. Let the children count and observe how long it takes for the water to disappear (usually a minute or two).
Teaching Measurement - Temperature
Have precut thin red strips that fit a large classroom thermometer ready.
Each day a child takes a turn cutting the strip to the length of the red in the thermometer and gluing the strip on to a chart.
The children can then compare the strips and report if the temperature is warmer, hotter or cooler than the previous day. Children can count how many hot days, how many cool days, etc.
Recording their experiences
It is beneficial for children to record their measurement experiences. In the activity below children choose two items, put them in the balance scale buckets and then record the heaviest and lightest objects. The rock, crayons, shell and other items the children weigh are labeled to help the children spell the words on their recording sheets.
Make timesaving recording sheets by copying a page for each child that has an explanation of the measurement activity such as, "We measured the table with blocks." Have the children draw a picture of their experience and use their knowledge of letters and letter sounds to print words.
Teaching measurement vocabulary
Refine the students measurement vocabulary as they take part in the daily kindergarten routines.
Reinforce terms such as: taller, shorter, small, large, lighter, heavier, hotter, colder, warm and variations of the terms such as large, larger, largest, morning. Also afternoon, evening, today, yesterday, tomorrow, week, year
Use vocabulary such as: thermometer, calendar, ruler, meter stick or yard stick, clock, and balance scale.
Teaching measurement: what skills do children need to know?
The children need experiences:
- classifying, describing and arranging objects using language such as shorter than, longer than...
- describing time and temperature with terms such as longer, shorter, hotter, colder, warm...
- comparing sizes of objects by using non-standard units e.g. line up blocks beside books, count the blocks
- choosing a non-standard unit and using it to estimate, measure, compare, and order various objects
- Use a non-standard unit (link cubes for example) to cover the given area of objects. e.g. How many crayon boxes does it take to cover the desk?
Go from "Teaching measurement" to "Teaching math vocabulary".
