Third grade students had a learning activity comparing and contrasting the capacity of different containers. The students first gathered around to estimate the capacity of a coffee cup. They were asked to think-pair-share what the maximum amount of liquid the coffee cup could hold. Few students were given a chance to share their ideas with the rest of the class. Then the students were given the same group of different size containers and were asked to estimate the amount of liquid they thought the different containers could hold and write it their notebooks. The students then used measuring cups and poured water in each of the different containers. They were then asked to write the actual capacity of the different containers. They compared the estimated and the actual capacity of the containers. The students then had a discussion about their findings and how the attributes of the containers might have caused them to predict the capacity, which might have been less or more than its actual capacity.
