Maths problem solving: Exploring Capacity

Wednesday 20th June 2018  

Children’s activities during play can enhance their numeracy skills and help them develop mathematical ideas. A number of studies have shown that young children who have a good start with numeracy and who engage with mathematical ideas in the early years make better progress in school mathematics (Aubrey & Godfrey, 2003; Aunio & Niemivirta, 2010). Numeracy can be described as a key outcome of how mathematics is taught and learned and the variety of contexts in which it needs to be used in everyday life (National Curriculum Board, 2009). Using both child-guided and adult-guided learning, intentional teaching in the early years can be a powerful tool for enhancing young children’s numeracy skills. This can include providing opportunities for children to represent things by drawing, building and moving.  

Our plan aims to intentionally use play-based, developmentally appropriate mathematics instruction for children, to have a positive impact on young children’s development of mathematical knowledge. We aim to direct and design interactions between educators and children in which educators purposefully challenge, scaffold and extend children’s skills. 

Today, we were focusing on the concept of capacity. Children often have a lot of misconceptions about capacity, and this can really only be cleared up through hands-on exploration. Capacity refers to the amount a container can hold. Capacity is used in relation to containers and generally refers to liquid measurement. Our children during past experiences have filled containers with continuous material (eg water). However today, we were focused on using discrete objects (Our bird seed material used here today).  

Our activity today involved creating a measuring station made from a recycled cardboard box, tubes and some duct tape. We added units of measurement (Informal measuring units) with tools such as funnels, conatiners and spoons of various sizes (large and small capacities).

This simple STEM invitation to play is a wonderful way to get children thinking, exploring, estimating, problem solving, and observing what is happening around them. We intended to show children that volume is the space a substance or object takes up or that can be enclosed in a container like the ones we have here today.  

This provocation seeks to achieve the following outcomes: 

+ Measuring, comparing, estimating volumes and capacities and using informal units

+ For children to describe mathematical situations and methods using their own mathematical language and actions

+ For children to be hands on with their learning, demonstrate and explain what is occuring, what they have predicted and what answers were obtained

+ For the children to explain the relationship between the size of the unit, and the number of units needed to fill a container (Communication and reasoning)

+ For children to begin to communicate using language such as full, empty and measure.  

The children worked together to discuss their various ideas and make comparisons. We asked: 

+ Which cup contained more seeds?

+ Which tube did the seeds go through the fastest?

+ When we pour our cup, is there room left? Does it overflow?

+How many cups does it take to fill up the funnel?

+What pours the fastest or slowest?

+ Where did the seeds go when we poured it into the box?

+ Is it half full/ full/ nearly full/ empty? 

Wolfe, Ilaria, Charlie, Penelope, Mosab, Harry, Isabel, Sophie and Milo worked together to transfer and sift the seeds through the funnels and tubes using spoons, cups, and scoops. Charlie experimented with different ways of transferring the contents into the tubes with his spoon and then a cup. Milo wanted to see how the funnel worked and would fill this to the top and then shake it about so that the contents fell through the tube and into the box.

“Where did it go?” asked Ilaria as she poured the seeds into the box. We lifted the station to see that all the seeds had collected at the bottom of the tray. We counted the amount of cups it took to fill the funnel to the top before sifting it through the tube. Next time, we may explore volume and capacity using glasses of various heights and widths to see if the glass is full or empty.