A ride in a rowboat turns into a disaster! But who can say whether mouse was innocent or scheming? This book by Pamela Allen can be a great introduction to a lesson on estimation, prediction, balance, measurement, or capacity.

CAPACITY is the measurement of how much something can hold. Usually we think of how much liquid a container can hold, but we can also think about the movie theater full to capacity, or a full computer disk, or our head full of ideas!

ACTIVITY: give each pair of students a small container that floats (or they can make their own paper boat). Give them a supply of marbles or beads of different weights and sizes. Challenge each pair to put the most items in their boat without capsizing. They will need to think about where to place each one (balance) as well as size/weight to maximize how many items in the space used up (volume).

You might have the students keep a tally and graph their results.

Folding a paper boat
Weight & capacity movie