Measurement occupies a host of important occupational and life skills, and can be a difficult task for young children to master. To initiate a discussion on measurement, your little one arranged pipe cleaner snakes by shortest to longest. Following this, your little one used a tape measure to measure each snake. This activity enabled your little one to practice their counting, observation, and critical thinking skills.

Measurement can be a tricky concept for preschoolers to grasp, so experimenting with real objects assists them in the understanding of complex measurement concepts. When relaying concepts of measurement, it’s best for your budding scientists to stay concrete because that’s how preschoolers think at this stage of their development.

Still, the basics of measurement can be taught at the preschool level with great effectiveness by using a ruler, as long as they are utilized to compare and contrast objects only.

The paper ruler activity below helps develop a sense of the awareness that every day objects have a certain length. The acquisition of measurement concepts also includes new vocabulary.

Throughout the activity, your little one was encouraged to use words such as longer, smaller, heavier, lighter, and variations of the terms such as large, larger, and largest.