Which Holds More? Teaching Capacity in Kindergarten and Prek (Early Math Collaborative at Erikson)

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This video from our Focus on the Lesson series, "Which Holds More?", demonstrates an activity for teaching capacity in kindergarten and preschool. Students look at two containers and try to determine which one would hold more liquid. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
One of the goals from this lesson is to get young students thinking about precise ways to describe their thinking. Many children use general terms-“it’s big!”- when explaining their ideas about measurement. This activity requires children to use more specific words and concepts to clearly explain their thoughts. While one container might be taller, the other might be wider.
Because it reinforces strong, precise vocabulary, "Which Holds More?" is a great activity for teaching capacity to English Language Learners.
“The language of capacity is difficult for any child but especially English Language Learners,” explains the teacher featured in Part 2 of this lesson. Students are able to practice using these new words, but the concrete objects in the lesson still allow them to fall back to using gesture to communicate their ideas.
BIG IDEA: The purpose of collecting data is to answer questions when the answers are not immediately obvious.
The most important thing young children can learn about data analysis is why we do it. When they understand that it might be the most effective way to answer a difficult question, they have the piece of information that makes data analysis something they might want to know more about. Knowing the purpose of data analysis motivates children to try it and to try to understand how it works.