Engaging Ways to Help Children Learn Capacity

Download these capacity worksheets and collection of capacity activities to help your students work on exploring in the classroom (or at home!)

These capacity worksheets are designed to engage your students in learning. They involve hands-on activities that will help your students explore and learn.

Add measuring tools to the printables and you will be ready to begin.

This is another free resource for teachers and homeschool families from The Curriculum Corner.

Introducing Liquid Measurement Skills

When helping your children understand the concept of capacity, be sure to plan for many hands-on activities.

Provide students with measuring cups, measuring spoons and other tools. You might include an empty gallon container, 1/2 gallon, quart, pint and cup.

Also sit out items for measuring. You might use dry rice or pasta to start.

If you have a sink in your classroom, allow students to use water. It might get a little messy but it’s just water so it will dry.

It’s a good idea to let children begin with open ended exploration using these materials. They can measure, pour and learn without direction.

Ask children to share what they notice. Have them teach their classmates. Children are curious and giving them time to explore before you begin teaching is a great way to encourage them to learn on their own.

Creating a Capacity Booklet

The materials being shared are designed so that you can create a booklet for your students to use when exploring. There is a cover page. There are also many worksheets that can be included. Be sure to look through and find the pages that will be a good fit for your classroom.

You will not want to print all of the pages to become a part of the workbooks – some of the materials in the download are the tools students will need to complete the work.

After students have studied capacity, length and time, they might also enjoy a round of I Have, Who Has.

Capacity Worksheets & Activities

Understanding Capacity This page is simply a spot for students to share what they already know about capacity. It is designed to get them thinking.

Capacity Definition This page can be used to help students begin to understand the meaning of capacity. What is capacity? The capacity of an object tells us how much it can hold.

Comparing Tools These following directions pages will help students work on comparing measuring tools while working on reading comprehension.

Water, Water Everywhere Gather cup, pint, quart and gallon measurement tools and set them up near a sink in your classroom.  Students can use the printable to record their observations as they pour water from one vessel into another.

My Cup Runneth Over & Just a Spoonful of… For this center you will need three or four sets of measuring cups and three or four sets of measuring spoons. Next, find two large containers – one big enough to hold a large bag of birdseed, popcorn kernels or dry beans and another for rice or sand. Place the measuring cups in the birdseed/popcorn kernels/dry beans and the measuring spoons in the salt/sand.  Students will explore these tools and make discoveries about their size and how much they hold.

Mix it Up & Trail Mix – For this center, students will be making a drink and snack. They will follow the directions to create both. The drink will be a group project while the snack will be an individual task.

For the drink mix, you will want a powdered mix that already has sugar added. You will also need a pitcher and spoon.

For the trail mix, you will want to gather M&Ms, Cheerios, Chex, mini marshmallows and popcorn. A recipe is provided. You can also create your own using the ingredients that work best for you.

You will also need cups for serving the drink and baggies for the snack mix.

Popcorn (Popped Vs. Unpopped) Center You might want to use an air popper for this activity. Because of the electricity and heat, you will want to have an adult with the group as they work. It’s great if you have a parent volunteer. If not, this might need to be a whole class activity. If you will be doing this as a whole class activity, you can explore popping different amounts of popcorn each time.

Capacity Capers Print pages 13, 14, 15 and 16 on cardstock. You might choose to print each page on a different color. Next, laminate for durability. Students will use them to explore the relationships between cups, pints, quarts and gallons as they complete the corresponding page Capacity Capers.

Comparing Measurements, Think About It! & Capacity Practice Students will use the anchor chart to help them answer the questions.

You can download these free printables here:

Measurement Printables

As with all of our resources, The Curriculum Corner creates these for free classroom use. Our products may not be sold. You may print and copy for your personal classroom use. These are also great for home school families!

You may not modify and resell in any form. Please let us know if you have any questions.