Measuring and Converting Volume

Scripture: I Kings 18:1-19:18

Learning Objectives:

  • Students will learn God is the only god we should worship.
  • Students will learn that just like Baal, false gods like money, beauty and even power have no strength or value compared to God.
  • Students will learn sometimes God shows himself to us in quiet ways like the whisper to Elijah.
  • Students will learn how to measure and convert volume.

Guiding Question: How can we measure volume and convert it into other units of volume??

Materials: Buckets of water, empty buckets, measuring spoons, liquid measuring cups, containers in pints, quarts, and gallons

Procedure: Review the story of Elijah and Mt. Carmel from the scriptures above. Emphasize the people’s dependence on idols and how the idols distracted them from the true God. Explain that idols are not just statues like the story. Idols can be anything that distracts us from God or becomes a priority in our life. Idols can be a multitude of things – a job, other people, TV, video games, sports, etc. Remind the students that there is nothing wrong with enjoying things like our jobs and TV but they should never come before God. Distractions can keep us from the important things in life. Listening to God requires attention and focus on Him, not on distractions and idols.

Introduce the activity. Tell students they are going to practice working with volume and review the formula for finding volume. Then put the students in pairs. Give each pair of students a bucket of water and an empty bucket (or any container). Then give them measuring spoons, liquid measuring cup, containers that hold a pint, quart, and a gallon. You will call out different amounts of liquid that requires the students to convert measurements when transferring liquid. For example, you call out two cups and they have to figure out that is equal to a pint.

Additional Questions: How can students create objects with different volumes?

Supplemental Activity: Introduce volume to students by having them build different combinations of rectangular prisms with a certain amount of unit cubes: http://jenniferfindley.com/teaching-volume-common-core-resource/

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