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What weighs more than an apple? {preschool math activity}

August 27, 2015 by Katie Leave a Comment

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I enjoy teaching kids about weights and measures, which are great topics to cover in preschool and kindergarten. We have done several activities using a balance scale over the years, such as our Easter Egg balance scale activity. As part of our apple unit, however, I wanted to add a bit more complexity to our balance scale activities. Therefore, I asked my kids the question, “What weighs more than an apple?”

Note: For more apple activities, see my Apple Unit Study page.

What weighs more than an apple? I love this preschool math activity that helps children learn about weight and compare quantities. This activity can easily be adapted to use other objects to fit other themes. || Gift of Curiosity

Apples are different sizes, of course. But we decided to use a medium sized green apple we had in the kitchen as our apple of comparison. We loaded the apple into one bucket on our balance scale set.

Then the kids helped me gather items from around our house that would fit into a bucket on our balance scale set.  We took turns placing each object into the other bucket and deciding whether it weighed more, less, or the same as our apple. Our geode, as you can see in the photo below, clearly weighed less than our apple.

What weighs more than an apple? I love this preschool math activity that helps children learn about weight and compare quantities. This activity can easily be adapted to use other objects to fit other themes. || Gift of Curiosity

But I didn’t want to stop with simply knowing what objects weighed more and what objects weighed less. So I asked my kids, “How much more/less does this object weigh than the apple?”

We decided to measure the difference in weight using the counting bears that came with our balance scale set.  So we added bears to the bucket with the item that weighed less until the two sides balanced out. In the picture below, you can see that we added a few too many bears to the geode’s bucket at first!

What weighs more than an apple? I love this preschool math activity that helps children learn about weight and compare quantities. This activity can easily be adapted to use other objects to fit other themes. || Gift of Curiosity

Then we repeated the activity with several more objects, including the large pink cube from our Montessori pink tower set (pictured), a plastic ball, a box of cards, and some plastic coins.

What weighs more than an apple? I love this preschool math activity that helps children learn about weight and compare quantities. This activity can easily be adapted to use other objects to fit other themes. || Gift of Curiosity

We sorted all of the objects into piles based on whether they weighed more, less, or the same as the apple. We also made a line of the counting bears next to each object to show how much more or less each object weighed compared to the apple.

What weighs more than an apple? I love this preschool math activity that helps children learn about weight and compare quantities. This activity can easily be adapted to use other objects to fit other themes. || Gift of Curiosity

Very simple. Very effective. And wonderfully hands-on. I love these kinds of preschool math activities for kids. 🙂

Apple Unit Study - BUY NOW

More apple resources

More apple posts from Gift of Curiosity:

  • Apple Unit Study
  • Apple Printables Pack
  • Apple Do-a-Dot Printables
  • Apple taste testing
  • Apple rotting experiment
  • Dissecting an apple
  • Apple sensory bin
  • Apple Montessori activities

For more kid-friendly apple activities and apple printables, see my Apple Unit Study page and my Apples Pinterest board.

Follow Katie @ Gift of Curiosity’s board Apples unit ideas on Pinterest.

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