Games to practice the concept of length

Hi there!!!

Today, I'm here to share with you some games you can use with the students so as to start teaching the concept of length, so they are thought for little children. I hope you'll like it!

First game: Creating necklaces!

You need several materials of different length for creating necklaces. Each students should choose ten pieces and introduce them in a rope. After that, they should reflect about the length of each necklace: have all of them the same length? does the length of the necklace depend on the chosen materials? how can they know the length of each necklace?... Then, it'd be good to challenge them to do a shorter necklace, a longer necklace... using different materials.

Second game: Throwing bottle caps!

For this game, we need several bottle caps. Each students should throw the bottle cap from the same place. They will have to observe which bottle cap is farer and, as a consequence, which distance from them to the bottle cap is longer. We'll discuss with them which segment is the longest, the shortest... and it'd be essential to challenge them, telling them things that are not true, so as to see if they correct us or not and to confirm that they understand the concept of length properly. Then, they will have to measure with a meter the length, so as to verify their hypotheses.

Finally, it'd be interesting that children repeat this activity, but starting from different points. This way, it'd be more difficult to know which one of the created segments is the longest, the shortest...

Third game: The game of ropes

For this game, we only need 5 ropes of the same length. The students, organised in 5 groups, have to put their rope in the floor in the way they want to. Then, all of us, we have to observe the different ropes and, as teachers, we'd ask students several questions: Are all the ropes equal? Is the length of the ropes the same? Because each rope occupies a different space, or not? If we put all the ropes as a straight line, what happens? This way, children will understand that, even at first sight, it can seem that they are different, all the ropes have the same length; depending on how we put them (straight, curved, with a square shape...), the visual image is different, but the length is the same. Then, students should measure the ropes, so as to verify that all of them are of the same length.

That's it! These are the games I wanted to show you today... I hope they'll be useful for you.. If you want more games... you only have to comment it below. See you soon!!!