How Many Fish? Measuring Ocean Animals

What you need:

How Many Fish? Measuring Pattern Cards

Learning Goals: Measurements

Non-standard measurement and estimation, Counting, Comparing

Learning is always much more fun when you can incorporate more than one sense. This counting and measuring activity uses the children’s senses of touch and taste.

Measuring and Counting with Ocean Animals

Print How Many Fish? Measuring Pattern Cards and provide a large amount of fish-shaped crackers. We found that laminating the cards helps them to be more stable for sharing amongst the children. The non-protected paper versions tended to absorb oil from the crackers.

Show the pictures of the ocean animals to children. Ask children to help you put the pictures in order from longest to shortest.

Demonstrate to children how to use the crackers to measure the length of one of the ocean animal patterns. Lay each cracker head to tail along one side of the animal. 

Count each fish, making sure that you touch the fish as you say each number.

Now that the children know what to do, give them each a handful of crackers and let them explore the activity on their own. 

After they have measured a few animals, encourage children to find another way to place their crackers while measuring. Did changing the position of the fish crackers change the measurement? 

Ask, "What other measurements could you find on the animal patterns?" This child tried to measure “all around” the animal. This opened a discussion about perimeter!

Submitted by KidsSoup member Beth Steward