This unit supports students to develop their ideas about capacity using standard units.
Volume is the measure of space taken up by a three-dimensional object. The space within a container is known as its capacity but as the thickness of many containers is negligible, it has become acceptable to refer to the space inside a container as volume too. In the measurement strand of the New Zealand Curriculum, the terms volume and capacity are used interchangeably.
In this unit students find the capacity of containers using cubic units (cubic centimetres, millilitres, litres and cubic metres), and explore relationships between these measures. By constructing containers of a given volume students strengthen their understanding of standard units.
The learning activities in this unit can be differentiated by varying the scaffolding provided to make the learning opportunities accessible to a range of learners. Ways to differentiate include:
This unit can be adapted to suit the experiences of your students. It uses boxes, and describes the use of small boxes from food and household items such as sugar cubes, toothpaste, cocoa, and spices. This could be linked to learning in the technology area (e.g. design a container for a new chocolate bar). Use any kind of rectangular box or container that is available, and that students are familiar with. Examples include paper bags, takeaway containers, and small gift boxes. Prior to teaching the unit you may like to source a collection of boxes for students to share. One way to do this would be to ask students to bring boxes from home, or search for suitable boxes around the school. These activities could be taken outside and related to places around the school. For example Activity 4. Students’ ideas and explanations can be recorded digitally to be able to share with their family and whānau. Also consider making links with the expertise of community members (e.g. builders) who may be able to talk to your class about the importance of cubic metres and capacity in their work.
Te Reo Māori vocabulary terms such as kītanga (capacity), ritamano (millilitres), rita (litre), mita pūtoru (cubic metre), and mitarau pūtoru (cubic centimetre) could be introduced in this unit and used throughout other mathematical learning.
The resources needed for each session are listed alongside each activity below.
In this session we design boxes to hold 64 sugar cubes.
Resources
Possible boxes include:
2cm x 2cm x 128cm for 64 cubes in a single row
4cm x 2cm x 64cm for 2 rows of 32 cubes
8cm x 4cm x 16cm for 2 layers, each with 4 rows of 8 cubes
In this session we explore the size of commercial boxes and construct a rectangular box (cuboid) of a given size.
Resources
In this session we find the capacity of boxes in millilitres and cubic centimetres. The task in this session could be introduced as the teacher modelling to the whole class. Then, students could work in pairs or small groups to estimate and measure the capacity of the different containers. Students could record their estimates and measurements on mini whiteboards or in a table.
Resources
In this session we find the number of place-value blocks that fill a metre cube. This task could be completed as a whole class introduction to the size of a metre cube. To reinforce learning, students could estimate how many metre cubes might fit in different classrooms or spaces around the school.
Resources
In this session we investigate the capacity of the classroom.
Resources
Dear family and whānau,
How many children from our class can fit in a cubic metre?
This week at school we have been exploring the capacity of objects and have used both litres and cubic metres and centimetres as our measuring units.
We invite you and your family to guess how many children from our class will be able to squeeze into a cubic metre. We will be trying this out on Friday so please send your guess to school before then.
Family/Whanau Name:___________________
We think that _____________________children will be able to squeeze into the cubic metre. This is a diagram of our thinking that went into our guess.
Printed from https://nzmaths.co.nz/resource/boxing at 12:34pm on the 27th April 2024