Grades 3–5 Math Activities

Numbers don’t only tell us how many. They also tell us how much. For example, how much does this bottle hold? How far is it to Cleveland? How much rice do we have? We can answer these questions with “a lot” or “a little,” but if we want to use a number, we need to have a number of something. In other words, we need a unit to measure by.

This water bottle holds 1 liter. It is 232 miles to Cleveland. We have 5 pounds of rice. Liters, miles, and pounds are all units of measure. Help your child explore units of measure while learning about volume and the basics of measurement.

	Many containers of different sizes and shapes, such as plastic deli and food-storage containers. (Try to include some containers that are equivalent to standard units: 1 cup, 1 pint, 1 quart, 1 liter, 1 gallon, and so forth.)

	Sand or water

	A large pot or box (box for sand only)

	Masking tape

	Marking pen

	Pencil and paper

Label each small container with a different letter. Then ask your child to figure out how much of each container is needed to fill the large pot. For example, he needs to find out how many A's it takes to fill the pot. Therefore, he needs to fill A with water (or sand), dump it into the pot, fill A again, dump it again, and keep count until the pot is filled up!

It is important that your child fills the containers to the top each time, and makes sure that he always fills the pot to the same point for each new container used. He should record his findings in a chart, listing the letter of each container next to the number of times it takes to fill the pot. He may need to try some containers twice if he loses count.

After all the information is collected, ask your child to examine it and draw some conclusions.

Here are some questions to ask:

	Which container needs to be used the most number of times to fill up the pot? Which container the least number of times? Why?

	Are there any containers that you used the same number of times? Why did this happen?

	When you look at the numbers that you recorded, do you see any patterns? Is there a container that you used twice as many times as another container? Three times as many times? Why do you think these patterns occurred?

Show your child which containers have standard sizes, and then ask:

	How many cups does it take to fill the pot? How many pints? How many liters?

	Do you see any relationships among the different units? How does a cup compare to a quart? (The information your child collected should reveal the answers.)

	Can you use any of the standard units to name a standard size for some of the other containers? Is there a container that holds 3 cups? Two liters?

This activity should give your child a feel for the sizes of different units of volume. Ask him to estimate the sizes of new containers, both large and small, and use the standard unit containers to check his predictions. How good can he get at predicting the capacity of different containers? Point out the ways standard units of volume are used in everyday life, and encourage your child to wonder and make predictions about them. Can he predict how much gas will be needed to fill the car by looking at the gauge (and knowing the gas tank's capacity)? Can he guess how much a bottle or a box on the supermarket shelf holds without looking at the label?

This same activity can be used to explore measuring length. Choose a distance in your home and have your child measure it with different materials that are uniform in length: new pencils, paper clips, spaghetti, macaroni, and so forth. These measurement activities will help your child develop a sense of the sizes of different units of measure and a genuine understanding of what units of measure are and how to use them.

 Grades 3–5 Math Activities