Grade 3 Math Activities

Numbers don’t only tell us how many. They can also tell us how much or how far. For example, how much does this bottle hold? How much rice do we have? How far is it to Cleveland? We can answer these questions with “a lot” or “a little,” or “very far,” 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. We have 5 pounds of rice. It is 232 miles to Cleveland. 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.

	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 many of each container is needed to fill the large pot. For example, she needs to find out how many A's it takes to fill the pot. Therefore, she 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 fill the containers to the top each time, and make sure that she always fills the pot to the same point for each new container used. She should record her findings in a chart, listing the letter of each container next to the number of times it takes for it to fill the pot. She may need to try some containers twice if he loses count.

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

Here are some questions to ask:

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

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

	Are there any patterns among the recorded numbers? 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 three cups? Two liters?

This activity should give your child a feel for the sizes of different units of volume. Ask her to estimate the sizes of new containers, both large and small, and use the standard unit containers to check his predictions. How good can she get at predicting the capacity of different containers? Point out the ways that standard units of volume are used in everyday life, and encourage your child to make predictions about them. Can she predict how much gas will be needed to fill the car by looking at the gauge (and knowing the gas tank's capacity)? Can she 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, paperclips, 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 as well as how to use them.

 Grade 3 Math Activities