Volume and Capacity - Three Bears and a Gingerbread Man

This week in Room 3 we are learning about volume and capacity.

Volume is the 3 dimensional size of an object - the space it takes up. This includes height, width and depth.

Capacity is the maximum amount or quantity that an object can hold. By maximum, we mean "how much when this is FULL?"

It is easy to compare volume and capacity when two things are different SIZES but the same SHAPE - like the three bears' porridge bowls. We know EXACTLY who has the biggest bowl, and which bowl holds the most porridge!

Some things are harder to work out. For example - Papa Bear's chair is really tall, but Mama Bear's chair is really wide. Whose chair has the greatest volume, whose chair is biggest??? Sometimes even bowls are like this - wide and shallow, narrow and deep, some aren't even round!

This gets really tricky, but if an object is hollow we can always work out its capacity by filling it with something - blocks (which we can count), water (which we can weigh or measure visually), flour, sugar, ginger...

We even made our very own ginger bread men (and ladies, and dogs...) using a cup, tablespoon and teaspoon measure to add the correct amounts of ingredients to our bowl. Lucky we've got some strong stirrers, sifters and measurers in Room 3 :)

Later on we ate our gingerbread characters - now our tummies have a slightly larger volume, but we have reduced their capacity by filling them up!