Introduction to Liquid Volume

10 min

Narrative

The purpose of this Warm-up is to elicit the idea that volume is a measurable attribute, which will be useful when students use informal units and liters to measure volume of liquids and the volume of containers in later activities. While students may notice and wonder many things about these containers, ideas around how much liquid is in each container and which container is filled with the most liquid are the important discussion points.

Launch

  • Groups of 2
  • Display the image.
  • “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
  • 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
  • “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
  • 1 minute: partner discussion
  • Share and record responses.

Student Task

What do you notice? What do you wonder?

A bowl and jar, both partially filled with water.

Solution Steps (3)
  1. 1
    Observe the two containers
    →Notice bowl (short, wide) and jar (tall, skinny) both with water
  2. 2
    Compare the containers
    →Wonder which has more water - shapes make it hard to tell
  3. 3
    Connect to concept of liquid volume
    →Understand volume of liquid is the amount of space the liquid takes up

Sample Response

Students may notice:
  • There is a bowl and a jar on a table.
  • The bowl is short and wide.
  • The jar is tall and skinny.
  • Both containers have some water in them.
Students may wonder:
  • How much water is in each container?
  • Which container has more water in it?
  • How could we measure the amount that each container would hold?
Activity Synthesis (Teacher Notes)
  • “Which container do you think is filled with the most water? Why?” (I think the bowl has more water in it because it’s so wide. I think the jar has more water because it looks like the water is higher up in the jar. I’m not sure because they are such different shapes.)
  • “When we think about how much liquid is in a container, we are thinking about the volume of a liquid. The volume of a liquid is the amount of space that a liquid takes up.”
  • “How might we find out for sure which container has the largest volume of water in it?” (Pour each liquid into a third container one at a time and compare how high the liquid goes. Pour the water in the bowl into an empty jar that’s the same size as the jar in the picture. Then hold it up to the water in the jar to compare it. Pour the water in the jar into an empty bowl just like the other bowl. Then compare it with the water in the other bowl.)
Standards
Building Toward
  • 3.MD.2·Measure and estimate liquid volumes and masses of objects using standard units of grams (g), kilograms (kg), and liters (l). Add, subtract, multiply, or divide to solve one-step word problems involving masses or volumes that are given in the same units, e.g., by using drawings (such as a beaker with a measurement scale) to represent the problem.
  • 3.MD.A.2·Measure and estimate liquid volumes and masses of objects using standard units of grams (g), kilograms (kg), and liters (l).<span>Excludes compound units such as <span class="math">\(\hbox{cm}^3\)</span> and finding the geometric volume of a container.</span> Add, subtract, multiply, or divide to solve one-step word problems involving masses or volumes that are given in the same units, e.g., by using drawings (such as a beaker with a measurement scale) to represent the problem.<span>Excludes multiplicative comparison problems (problems involving notions of “times as much”); see Glossary, Table 2.</span>

20 min

15 min