• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

PreKinders

Ideas for Pre-K & Preschool Teachers

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Terms of Use
  • Help
    • Printing Help
  • Shop
  • Learning Areas
    • Literacy
    • Math
    • Science
    • Art
    • Music
    • Fine Motor
    • Christian Activities
  • Themes
  • Teaching Ideas
    • Centers
    • Teaching Tips
    • Assessment
    • Back to School
    • End of Year
  • Printables
    • Literacy Printables
    • Math Printables
    • Science Printables
    • Music Printables
    • Visual Discrimination Printables
    • Classroom Management Printables

Weighing Gift Boxes

By Karen Cox | Affiliate Disclosure | Filed Under: Christmas Theme, Sizes & Measuring

This weight measuring activity can be a fun preschool center at Christmas time or anytime of the year. In this activity, children weigh gift boxes on a balance scale to see which weigh the most, least, or same.

Christmas Math Weighing Gift Boxes

To set up this activity, you will need:

  • Balance scale
  • Marbles
  • Small gift boxes, such as cardboard jewelry boxes
  • Wrapping paper
  • Tape

Small cardboard jewelry boxes, such as the ones in my photos here, come from department stores. When you buy jewelry (the inexpensive kind), they often give you these little boxes. They can also be purchased at places like Michaels, but I’m all for free, so be sure to ask parents, grandparents, and friends to save these for you.

Weigh Boxes on a Balance Scale for Pre-K Math

The marbles are used for weighting the boxes. Hide one marble inside one box, 3 marbles inside the next box, 6 marbles inside the next, etc. If marbles are not available, you might try other items to weight the boxes, such as quarters.

Weigh Gift Boxes for Pre-K Measurement

Once you have the marbles in your boxes, wrap each box in Christmas wrapping paper. Use the same wrapping paper print, so that all of the boxes look the same. If you decide to do this activity during a different season of the year, you could use birthday wrapping paper or a solid color paper.

Which Box Weighs More?

To introduce the activity to children, show them how to hold a box in their hand to feel the weight. They can hold a box in each hand and see if they can feel which box is heavier. Then, show them how to place a box in each side of the balance scale to see which box weighs the most.

Weigh gift boxes to explore weight in Pre-K

Match Boxes that Weigh the Same

For this next weighing activity, prepare a set of boxes with matching amounts of marbles so children can find the boxes that weigh the same.

Marbles in gift boxes to teach Pre-K measuring by weight

Wrap one set of boxes (with 1 marble, 3 marbles, 6 marbles, etc.) in one kind of paper, and wrap the matching set of boxes in another kind of paper.

Weighing boxes for preschool math

Children will match the boxes with red paper to the boxes with green paper by weighing them in the balance scale to find which ones weigh the same.

Measuring Weight in Pre-K

What Weighs the Same as the Box?

Here’s another spin on this activity. Show children how they can find objects around the classroom that might weigh the same as one of the gift boxes. For example, they could weigh a pair of scissors, glue bottle, glue stick, or wood block against the gift boxes to see if the classroom object weighs the same as one of the gift boxes. Or even add two gift boxes to see if your object is heavier.

Measuring Weight in Preschool

For more pre-k measuring ideas, check out the Size & Measuring page.

Get FREE updates!
Join here to get weekly emails with free printables and activities for Pre-K!
We collect, use, and process your data according to our Privacy Policy.
Don't worry - we never sell or share email addresses!

19 Comments

About Karen Cox

Karen is the founder of PreKinders.com. She also works as a full-time Pre-K teacher in Georgia. Read more...

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. donna says

    December 2, 2014 at 7:16 pm

    Love this idea!!! I am going to work on this now 🙂

    Reply
  2. Judy says

    December 2, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    What an awesome idea! Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  3. Kusum says

    December 2, 2014 at 7:45 pm

    Thanks, what a great idea!!

    Reply
  4. Anne says

    December 2, 2014 at 8:10 pm

    I love this activity! The simplicity of it is the genius. Thank you again for an adorable and appropriate activity. Authentic learning with Christmas gifts…yeah!

    Reply
  5. Lettie says

    December 2, 2014 at 8:35 pm

    Thank you! for the great ideas you share.

    Reply
  6. alma says

    December 2, 2014 at 9:21 pm

    Thank youuuuuuu great idea I love it 🙂
    thanks for sharing .

    Reply
  7. Naima says

    December 2, 2014 at 9:50 pm

    Very nice idea. Like you said it can be done at any time of the year. Thank you for sharing!!!

    Reply
  8. Pennie says

    December 2, 2014 at 10:48 pm

    This is a great activity and it would have been perfect with our Christmas gift wrapping dramatic play center last year.

    Reply
  9. Melinda says

    December 2, 2014 at 11:12 pm

    This is great! A co-worker and I have planned a Theme for December using a mail carrier as our Community Helper and many activities using gift paper, bags and bows for sorting activities. We are also using Christmas cards for lacing activities and matching games. Your idea will be a great addition to our theme next week! Thanks so much for your ideas each week. I use them often!

    Reply
  10. Mary says

    December 3, 2014 at 8:39 am

    This is awesome. Now I know what to do with my Lia Sophia boxes and left over wrapping paper.

    Reply
  11. Pleasantte says

    December 3, 2014 at 8:40 am

    This is a great idea, it incorporates many skills. I will share this lesson with the education team and staff.

    Thanks,

    Reply
  12. Sabrina says

    December 4, 2014 at 7:23 am

    This is an awesome idea! Thanks for sharing.

    Reply
  13. Diana simpson says

    December 4, 2014 at 7:50 pm

    Awesome ideal! Will be doing this!

    Reply
  14. Lyn Cornacchia says

    December 5, 2014 at 12:07 pm

    Love this idea and it can be done throught the year and during the different season.

    Reply
  15. Sharon Pfluger says

    December 5, 2014 at 10:51 pm

    Great ideas; the kids will love this. Jello or pudding boxes would be about the right size also.

    Reply
  16. lorry.preschool@gmail.com says

    December 11, 2014 at 9:02 am

    Love this idea, but I didn’t have time to do the boxes, so I bought cute, little Christmas bags.

    Reply
  17. Alma Marquez says

    December 11, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    Awesome! Thanks for sharing. Blessings.

    Reply
  18. Renee says

    December 17, 2014 at 11:01 pm

    Thanks for sharing! Wonderful idea! Many learning standards and easily engaged learning! Makes intentional teaching easy! I introduced this activity at small group time. I left it out for center time all week and many children revisited it to do their own investigations! Love to hear them use the vocabulary heavy, light, same and balanced! Thanks again for sharing!

    Reply
  19. Benedicta says

    March 8, 2015 at 9:04 pm

    Thanks for your excellent ideas!!! I will definitely try this with my children. Keep the great ideas coming. You are an inspiration to all educators!!

    Thanks Karen

    Benedicta

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Visit My Shop! 

Welcome!

Glad you're here! You'll find hands-on learning activities, themes, and printables for Pre-K, Preschool, and Kindergarten kids. I'm Karen Cox, a Pre-K teacher in Georgia. I have taught 4-5 year olds for 20+ years! Read More…

Before Footer

WE BELIEVE IN HANDS-ON, ACTIVE, & PLAYFUL LEARNING TO INSPIRE YOUNG MINDS

Serving Pre-K teachers, parents, & kids worldwide since 2000

Get Our Free Weekly Newsletter

  • Contact
  • Free Updates
  • Terms of Use
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2022 · PreKinders.com

Get FREE weekly updates!
Join here to get weekly emails with free printables and activities for Pre-K!
We collect, use, and process your data according to our Privacy Policy.
Don't worry - we never sell or share email addresses!
Get FREE updates!
Join here to get weekly emails with free printables and activities for Pre-K!
We collect, use, and process your data according to our Privacy Policy.
Don't worry - we never sell or share email addresses!