For Everyone
For Parents
For Teachers
Activities
Big and Little
From teeny tiny to gigantic: explore size with your child.
Materials
- Toys
- Stuffed animals or books of different sizes
- Ball of string
Directions
1. Gather toys, stuffed animals, or books of different sizes. With your child, line up the objects according to size, from smallest to largest. As you decide on the order, talk about different dimensions of size: tallest, widest, longest, thickest, shortest, thinnest. Use, and encourage your child to use, a range of descriptive words to talk about the big and small objects: huge, gigantic, enormous; tiny, teeny, minuscule.
2. The biggest animal in the world, the blue whale, is 70 feet long. With your child, measure and cut a 70-foot piece of string-the length of the whale. Can you find a space in your house where a visiting whale could fit? If not, take it outside to see how a whale in the neighborhood would look. Help your child use his/her height as a measuring unit. How many replicas of your child, lying head to food, would it take to equal the length of the whale?
Talk About It
1. Ask your child, "What would it be like to be as big as a blue whale or as little as an ant? Where would you sleep if you were very, very big or very, very small? What would you eat and drink for breakfast? Where would you take a bath? How could you be of help, because of your special size?" (Sometime little people can be a very big help. Being very large can be helpful, too!)
2. This is an activity you can do either inside and outdoors. Have your child look around and find something that is very big. Next, try to find something even bigger. Try the same thing with tiny objects. Have your child find something that is very small. Then look for something that is even smaller.
Related Books
Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
Big Dog, Little Dog by P.D. Eastman
Titch by Pat Hutchins
Age Range: 4-6
Skills/Subjects:
- Language and Literacy Development
- Math & Numbers
- Problem Solving
Related Episodes:
