Year 3 - Capacity and volume

These were the questions posed to the children at the beginning of the week as we started a new area in Maths - Measuring liquids.

We learnt they are two very different things :

Capacity is - the maximum amount a container can hold

whereas

Volume is - how much liquid is currently in the container.

We explored different containers and discovered that different sizes and shapes can still have the same capacity and that looks can deceive. We also discovered that a taller container may not necessarily have a larger capacity than a smaller one, the smaller container may be wider or deeper and thus have a greater capacity.

Mrs Folker raided her cupboard for bottles of all different shapes and sizes and the children had to guess which ones had the greatest capacity with some surprising results.

With containers and measuring jugs at the ready the children had great fun exploring. First, they had to estimate a container's capacity before carefully pouring a liquid into it. Finally they had to measure the contents in a measuring jug to see how close they were to their estimate. The tricky part was working out what the increments on the side of the jugs were.

Next week have your weighing scales ready as we will be looking at mass. You may even want to dust off your cake tins and bake a cake.

A fun way to reinforce learning!