Friday I brought a container of water to math group and asked the students how we could measure a liquid. One student suggested that we could measure the temperature with a thermometer (calling up a S'math lesson we did earlier this school year.) Another said we could find out how much it weighed. Then someone pointed out it would be hard to find out because if we weighed it on a scale, we would also be weighing the container it was in. We discussed how to get around that problem. Then someone suggested measuring liquid with a measuring cup. I brought out some measuring cups and liters, and we looked at those.
Then I brought out a tall, thin glass and a short, fat glass. I asked which they thought would hold the most water. One student said he thought they would hold the same amount. The others were divided between thinking the tall glass and the wide glass would hold the most. When we carried out the experiment, it turned out they each held exactly 1 cup.
As we moved on the Math Choice time, some students chose to experiment some more with the water and the different containers.
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