20 Fun Measurement Activities to do at Home

Maths need not be a chore at home, which is something we often hear.

Numbers are all around us in what we do, yet we often miss out on the opportunities to embrace them and turn them into a fun learning experience for adults as well as children.

Here’s just a few ideas to try at home, great investigations that can be used as prompts for further and deeper investigations.

Think of it as “Maths without doing maths’!!

· Hands. In your family, who has the biggest hands? How do you know for sure?

· Using just a piece of string (you could choose different lengths), make a list of the things that can, and can’t be measured by that piece of string. Why? Why not? Is there something else that you could use to measure with?

· Huge and Tiny. Go around your house and decide what things could be listed under each heading. How do you decide when it becomes huge or tiny? What other headings could you come up with? Which heading has the most objects under it?

· Draw 3 animals. Cut out the pictures and discover how many ways that you can order them. Eg Heaviest to lightest, tallest to smallest, hairiest to smoothest etc.

· Find some big objects that are light, and some small objects that are heavy. Ask someone else to order them from lightest to heaviest without touching them – You do the moving for them. How did they go? Now get them to find the objects, and you do the ordering…without touching them!

· Petrol. How much petrol/diesel does your family car hold. You may have more than one car, so compare both/all. You may have other machines with fuel tanks that you could investigate as well (lawn mower, tractor, motorbike etc) How long does a tank of fuel cost? How much does it cost to fill? (Today, last week, last month) Keep a graph of what it costs to fill as the petrol prices fluctuate. Is it better to buy petrol on certain days of the week?

· Find two calendars in your house (or online). Choose two that look very different. Can you identify the things that make them different? The same? Can you suggest why they may look different?

· What other types of measurement can you find in your house, that we do not use much anymore? They could be ones that your parents used when they were young. Even though we are metric now, can you list the times when we still use imperial measurements? Make a list of imperial measurements, and give an estimation of what they would be in metric eg 1 inch = ? cm

· What is closest to your house – your friend’s home, or your school? How do you know? How could you find out for sure? How many ways could you find out?

· Go through your measuring containers in the kitchen (but put them back afterwards!!) Using the ones that hold liquids, look at the shapes being used. Can you give some reasons why they might be these shapes?

· Collect 6 different objects from around the house that are fairly similar in weight (Only choose them by lifting them) Put them in order lightest to heaviest. Take a photo. Now use some scales to get their actual measurement. How accurate was your estimation? If you don’t have scales, can you construct your own measuring device that accurately measures them against each other?

· Find some things in your house where the measurement needs to be exact, or precise. Now find some things where the measurement can be an estimation (it should be close, but not exact). What could happen if we swapped them around, or reversed how we measured them? Perhaps you could draw a cartoon, write a story or film yourself with this?

· How much measuring do you do in a day? Other family members? Do you do measuring without really realising it? What sorts of measurement do you rely on the most? Why?

· Imagine a day with no measuring whatsoever. What would it be like? Could you get through it? What would be the biggest problem for you?

· Estimate the length and width of your back yard. Now pace it out. Use a tape measure/piece of rope/string to get the actual measurement. How close was your estimation?

· TV Shows. Watch one of your favourite shows for 15 mins. How many times do ads come on? How many ads in a row? Are they all the same length? Is each ad break the same length? How much of the 15 mins is ads, and how much is your tv show? Can you write this as a fraction?

· Recipes. Look at any recipe of your choice. What sort of measurements are being used? Can you come up with the same recipe if it was halved? Doubled? Divided into 3rds?

· What can you do in 20 seconds? Time yourself, and others in your family doing different activities. Eg How many times can you click your fingers in 20 secs? Tie your shoelace? Bounce a golf ball? Try different activities and time frames.

· Measurement Bingo. Choose a room in the house. Eg Bathroom. On a 3 x 3 grid, list 9 different measurements that you found in this room. Eg 11cm, 3cm, 250g, 2.5kg, 145ml etc Swap your grid with a partner who has done the same. (Do them out of sight of each other, or at different times) Can you discover the items from your partner and match them with the listed measurements?

· Saving Water. Let a tap run slowly for 30 secs. Collect the water. Measure how much water you collected. Use this information to calculate…

- How much water is lost in 1 minute.? 2 minutes? 10 minutes? 1 hour? A day? How far can you go? How long would it take to fill your bath? Pool? etc