It's December, the perfect time to curl up and watch your favorite holiday movie. In my house every Saturday from after Thanksgiving until Christmas we watch a holiday movie together. The kids picked Santa Paws for tomorrow night. We'll heat some hot cocoa and pop some popcorn. Before I hand over the popcorn though, I want to introduce my kids to the concept of volume. I saw a great PBS LearningMedia lesson that's perfect for popcorn!
At the movie theater there's multiple sizes of popcorn. Everything from a short and fat cylinder to a skinny and tall one. Did you ever think about which actually holds more popcorn? Try setting out two bowls for popcorn. Grab a piece of regular printer paper that'll serve as our cylinder. First, roll the paper so that it forms a short sided, big bottom cylinder. Fill it with popcorn and put all that popcorn in a bowl. Then, unroll the paper and roll it instead so it forms a tall skinny cylinder. See if your kids can predict if this will hold more or less popcorn than the first one did. Fill it up, dump it in the other bowl, and compare! Your kids will likely be shocked that the very same piece of paper formed shapes that held very different amounts of popcorn!
Of course, to avoid inevitable sibling fighting, I suggest evening out the two bowls of popcorn before snuggling up for that movie and snack!
At my house, I have my nephews every weekend. We always watch a movie and make popcorn. They always insist that they need to have spray butter and nacho cheese seasoning. They then fight to eat the pieces that have the most seasoning on them. Somehow the 11 year old always manages to talk the 6 year old into whatever movie he wants to watch. most movies end up with the 6 year old watching his ipad though. His attention span just isn't long enough for an entire movie. Can't wait to see them over break to snuggle up and watch a good Christmas movie!
ReplyDeleteOne thing my students always say is "Will I need to know this when I am older?" I always say, absolutely! The idea of comparing the different sizes of popcorn is such a great idea. I might have to use this in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteAs a sister, when I was younger we would always fight over who had more. For some reason, whoever ate the slowest somehow always got yelled at by the other sibling for having "more" looking back, I can't help but chuckle.