Learning about Mass and Weight
‘Mass’ and ‘weight’ can be challenging concepts for your child to understand. Mass is the amount of material that is in an object – mass does not change, no matter where it is. The weight of an object may change depending on where it is and what is happening to it.
There are a number of activities you can do at home with your child to help improve his or her understanding of these concepts:
- gather objects of different sizes or weights that can fit into your child’s hand and encourage them to lift the object up to compare the weight. Also ask your child to close their eyes so they do not think that the larger object has to be heavier – then discuss what you have discovered.
- show your child how weight and mass can change with certain objects. You could blow up a balloon with air and fill another with water to show your child that the same objects can measure at a different weight.
- ask your child to find objects of a certain weight. For example to find an object that is heavier than a toy car, or an object that is as heavy as a shoe – have your child discuss the findings.
- encourage your child to predict which items will be heavier than others and to explain their reasons.
- once your child learns about units of measurement and weight, begin to experiment with kitchen scales and ask him/her to guess how much an object will weigh, or ask them to find objects which would weigh a kilogram – for example ‘could six apples weigh one kilogram?’
- cooking is a great way to experiment with weight by measuring ingredients.
- use appropriate language to show that when comparing two items one will be lighter or heavier but when comparing three or more items one will be the lightest or heaviest.
It is important to always allow your child to estimate before they measure something and to know that an estimate is neither wrong nor right.
For more information on helping your child with literacy and numeracy, visit the website for parents at: www.education.qld.gov.au/parents/map/
