Heavy or Light

Since young children typically lack the ability to understand abstract ideas, they often confused the words big and heavy with small and light. You must find a way to physically engage them with the weight of objects so that they can understand the relationship between weight and size in order for them to comprehend the real fact that small objects can be heavy. They will learn from this that an object's weight is not always as visible.

In order to describe heavy and light, use balancing scales. In order for children to understand how the scale reacts to weight, such as how it falls down on the heavy side and rises on the lighter side, start by placing one marble on one side of the scale and two or three on the other.

Give the children a table full of items along with two laundry baskets. Make sure you have a wide variety of items. You should have both big, light things like a beach ball and small, heavy things like a paperweight. It's important to keep children from confusing big and little with heavy and light. Ask students to arrange their belongings into the two laundry baskets, putting all the light items in one and all the heavy items in the other.

Heavy or Light Activity

Learning Objectives:

  At the end of the lesson, the children will be able to:

·         Compare the weight and talk about the objects which are Heavy or Light

·         Make Prediction (make a guess), Observe and Describe result

·         Develop their thinking and reasoning skills

Resources:

salt, bowl of water, cotton balls, 2 small cloth or gift pouch bags, if they don’t have a pair of old socks can be used to put their salt and cotton balls

Teaching and Learning Strategies:

The children will be asked to compare the weight of the object. Say, Let’s see which object is heavy which is light. I have a stone and a feather. I will think which is heavy and which is light. The one that is harder to lift will be the heavy one, and the one that is easier to lift will be the light one. Say, I think the stone will be heavy and the feather will be light. Pick up the stone and the feather. Bring both hands level like a balance scale and slowly lower the hand with the stone. The stone is heavy, and the feather is light. Compare other object that are heavy and light. The children will talk about which object is heavy and which is light by the balancing scale that will be shown by the teacher. They will do a simple experiment and compare the weight of the bag with cotton balls and bag with salt. They will be asked what will happen to the two bags if they put in the water. Which bag is heavy and which bag is light?

Watch the video for the step by step instructions

: 

Step 1:  Put some cotton balls inside the cloth bag and the salt in the other cloth bag.

         2: Ask the children to predict or make a guess which bag is heavy and light?

         3.  Place the two bags inside a bowl of water

         4.  Now, which of the two bags become heavy and light after placing inside a bowl of water?

Questions for discussion:

1.       Which is heavy and light the stone and feather? Why the stone is heavy?

2.       In the balancing scale how do we know which one is heavy and light?

3.       In the experiment, before placing the two bags in the water which is heavy and light? Is your guess correct?

4.       After placing in the water, what happened to the two bags? Which bag is heavy and which bag is light? Why?