Heavier and Lighter Worksheets
Helping students understand the concept of heavier and lighter is a unique one. We normally teaching topics that are better suited to one style of learning, but this is one that stretches the gamut. You want to be hands-on here, but not too much as you will want to help students use this concept in a more generalized setting. In order to help them achieve this stick with things that they are comfortable with and that they know very well. Students can use these worksheets and lessons to determine the relative weight of an object that is provided. We provide them with things that most students have a good level of experience with.
Aligned Standard: K.MD.A.2
- Bikes versus Whales Step-by-Step Lesson- Who is the heaviest and lightest in each set?
- Guided Lesson - We are just looking for the heaviest object in each row here.
- Guided Lesson Explanation - Always ask yourself, "Which one would I least like to have dropped on my foot?"
- Practice Worksheet - Another long one for you. This is seven pages long. I would make it a whole class activity.
- Matching Worksheet - Getting the first one right makes the rest of it a breeze.
- More or Less Worksheet 5 Pack - Circle the most or the least.
- Comparing Size and Quantity Worksheet - This could double as a lesson too.
- Mom and Lots of Fruit Worksheet - If you are trying to step the difficulty up a bit, this one is for you.
- Who Weighs The Least? Worksheet - These are everyday objects, some might need a tad of explanation before the kids answer.
- Who Weighs More? Worksheet - Which one would make you say "Ouch!"
- Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.
- Heaviest To Lightest Worksheet- Order the three objects based on their weight. Remember that 1 = heavy and 3 =light.
- Who Weighs Less Comparison Guided Lesson Explanation - Students need to focus on the vertical columns to answer this properly.
- Who Weighs Less Practice Worksheet- I kept each comparison along the same theme. I am aware that fighter jet and birds aren't that close.
- Who Weighs More Practice Worksheet - I started to work with a beach theme, but it went to containers as I went along with it.
- Order Objects by Weight Lesson- Students begin to sort these things weight. Makes for a critical thinking problem at this level.
- Mixed Weight Differential Skills Worksheet- This one was really to see if students understand what the objects are.
- Who Weighs Less Guided Lesson- Make sure that they read the directions carefully. Some kids fly through it and get it wrong.
- Who Weighs More Guided Lesson- When you have an elephant in the conversation, it is pretty easy.
How to Judge What is Heavier or Lighter
Visually, people and things can be deceptive. Especially in the case of their weights, one can find it very difficult to judge between two things and determine which one of them is heavier. In the case of people, it can be more difficult to guess the weight of someone. There can be people who look slim in appearance but weigh more than expected. Or there can be an opposite case as well. So, while making a comparison, how to judge who weighs more or less?
What makes things especially tricky regardless of the type of object we are discussing is the concept of density. Density is a measure of how tightly packed together an objects molecules are together. The tighter these things are packed together, the less space they take up. Some substances have very high densities and as a result a small amount can be very heavy. Other substances have very low densities, and the same size material could be very light. A really good example of this is the difference between gold and water. We are all familiar with a gallon container of water. You will see them often in the grocery store, they weigh about 8 1/3 pounds each. Water has a relatively low density. Gold, on the other hand, is very dense. So much so, that the same gallon container made of gold would weigh 160 pounds.
A common method of weighing things or people is to compare their weights with some commonly known weights. It is an easy way of finding out what weighs more and what weighs less. First, you make a known weight, a yardstick, and then you compare the weights of the other two things that you wanted to compare. For example, the average weight of a refrigerator is somewhere around 100 kg. Now, to determine the weight of two persons, one can make a comparison visually by making them stand next to a refrigerator.
If both of them have the same width, but one is a bit taller than the refrigerator, and the other one is a bit shorter, the taller person will weigh more. And by comparing their weights with that of the refrigerator, we will have an idea about their weights as well. It is one of the many ways through which one can judge who weighs more or less.