Introducing Weight Balance to Preschool Kids

It is not too early to introduce weight balance concept to Preschool/Pre K kids,  without complicating the subject this topic can be easily introduced to Lil ones.Balance scales provides Hands on learning  tool for young kids and it enhances their math skills.

I made this balance my self and it took me just 15mins to make it, 10 if you have everything in hand.

This is what you will need for this project
Egg Carton( for base), Egg Carton Baskets,  Straw, Binder clips, Round head fastener, Glue, Scissor

Here is how you make it
I had some left over egg carton baskets that i made a while ago, but if you don't  want to make these you simply cut two egg carton cups  and either glue pipe cleaners or yarn for handle. Now when your baskets are ready, take a straw and punch a very small hole in the centre of straw. On the two ends of straw attach binder clip which holds two baskets on the two opposite ends.

Cut  the tall part of egg carton, you will need  around seven to eight of them and stack them up as shown in the pic below,  this will be the base of the Balance.Insert the fastener through the hole that was made in the middle of the straw to the top hole  of the egg carton base. Balance is ready for the kids to explore the world of measuring.

When my Balance was ready i took it to my class and showed it to my students, they started  to explore it a while.In our small group activity i put balance on the table and gathered bunch of  mini plastic clips and put them on the table near the balance, i wanted to show children  how balance measures two items by placing objects(clips) on each side(basket). first we balance the scale by putting two equal sized objects i.e 2 clips on each side. after that i gave 3 kids 2 clips and asked 2 kids to put their clips on one side of balance and 1 kid to put his clips on the other side.they could easily see that the basket with 4 clips weighed lower than the basket with only 2 clips and  to make it more exciting i asked kids to put 2 more clips on the basket that was sinking lower until it touched the bottom. This  gives the students idea about weight, they also counted the clips in each side of the balance .

Then i wanted to show them what happens if we measure two different objects, so i put a small eraser in one side and pennies  on the other side, until both the sides became balanced.This activity will help children know and learn about weights and balance.
This is perfect  activity for kindergarten kids as they can relate to weights and measurements more than preschool kids. There are so many ways to make children  understand and introduce the concepts of weights and measurements , you can use any small objects for weighing e.g  small crayons, coins, erasers, small rocks, rings, basically  any small thing that can fit in these baskets, look around and you'll find no. of  small  items for ready for weighing.