Measuring Volume Morning Prompt

For our morning walk in prompt when the children first enter our room and get organsied for the day, I set up two shapes that had the same volume.

With our morning prompts, children do not have to participate, but nearly all of them do at their own choice.

The question posed was which had a greater volume.

I wanted to give the children an opportunity to solidify their newly discovered strategy of measuring the volume of rectangular prisms. We hadn't looked at this for a few weeks so I was curious to see who would remember the formula and / or what other strategies would emerge.

Most of the children who participated could recognise that the two shapes had the same volume.  Most used the formula, but others chose other strategies. This become a useful informal assessment to see what each child was doing mathematically.


Some samples:

Later in the day, we revisited the prompt and discussed strategies we used. This was a helpful way for children to hear how others approach mathematical thinking.

It also ended up creating an interesting investigation which we decided to add to our wonder wall:   What other prisms can we create that have an equal volume?

I think some very interesting number connections could be explored with that and so I'm excited to see who will choose to explore it and what they discover.