A collection of ideas for teaching Sizes & Measurement in Pre-K and Preschool.
Find more math ideas on the Math Resource Page
Books
Click for a list of Size & Measurement Books for Pre-K children.
Activities
Sorting Bolts by Size
Children sort the bolts by size into the three different sized cups.
Sorting Pom Poms by Size
Children sort craft pom poms by size into the three different sized jars.
Sorting Bears by Size
Children sort bear counters by size into the three different sized jars.
Cookie Cutters
Children arrange the cookie cutters in order by size. They can place them in a row, or place them one inside the other. These cookie cutters were made by Wilton and can be found in Michaels or Hobby Lobby.
Jewel String Size Matching
Children take a blue jewel string from the bowl and find a red jewel string of the same length to match. They can check their answer by counting the jewels on each string to see if they are the same. Each blue string has one matching red string.
Jewel String Ordering by Size
This bowl contains only one string of each length, all in one color. Children place them in order by size. They can check their answer by counting the jewels on the strings.
Ribbon Sizes
Cut ribbons into different lengths (make sure they exactly match the length of 2, 3, 4, etc. Unifix cubes hooked together). Children hook Unifix cubes together to measure the length of each ribbon, count how many cubes long the ribbon is, and place them on a mat next to that number.
Ribbon Sizes Mat
Puzzles for Ordering by Size
These puzzles were purchased by my school from an educational supply company. They help the children notice things of different sizes and give them practice for ordering by size.
Cubes
Children use wooden cubes or Unifix cubes to make long and short lengths.
Large and Small Play Dough Snakes
Children use play dough to make a short snake and a long snake.
Large and Small Straw Snakes
Each child is given a cup of 20 straw pieces (straws are cut into 1-inch pieces) with two pieces of yarn. Tie a plastic needle to the end of each piece of yarn for stringing, or place tape on the end of the yarn to make a “needle”. Children use problem solving skills to figure out how many pieces of straw to string on each piece of yarn in order to make a long snake and a short snake.
Play Dough Bear Family
Children use play dough to make three bears of three different sizes: papa bear, mama bear, and baby bear. Each child has 3 pairs of wiggle eyes in three sizes. Children match the small, medium, and large wiggle eyes to their small, medium, and large bears.
Play Dough Shapes
These can be made with any of the cookie cutters that come in more than one size. I traced each cookie cutter, cut them out, glued them on the mat, and covered the mats with clear contact paper. Children use the cookie cutter to cut out a play dough pumpkin, and match it to the same size pumpkin on the mat.
Size Hunt
Our class went on a nature walk “size hunt” to find things in the outdoor environment of different sizes: something smaller than our fingernail, bigger than our hand, longer than our arm, smaller than our foot, bigger than our whole body, larger than a leaf, smaller than a house, etc.
Building Sizes with Blocks
Children used the blocks to build towers that are smaller than their body, larger than their body, and the same size as their body. They also built two towers of the same size.
Pattern Block Sizes
Children used the green triangle pattern blocks to build small, medium, and large triangles. They did the same with the orange square pattern blocks.
Sorting Stars by Size
The stars were cut out of paper using three different sizes of paper craft punchers. Children sort them by size and glue them onto small, medium, and large pieces of paper.
Super Absorbant Polymers
These “growing toys” can be found in many stores for $1.00. You immerse them in water and they grow a little more each day. I trace around the object before placing it in the water so that we can compare it’s size each day to the original size. After it fully expands, we take it out of the water to watch it shrink back to it’s original size.
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