ABSTRACT
As with activities involving shape and space, activities involving measuring allow us to notice pupils excelling, who have not always succeeded immediately when working with number. This chapter reflects on which units of measurement we have a good understanding of and those which we cannot immediately picture. Measuring is not just about units of measurement; other key skills are reading scales and measuring instruments, including clocks and understanding concepts such as area and perimeter. Initially children will begin to understand the language of measurement and comparison, using vocabulary such as ‘greater’, ‘smaller’, ‘heavier’, ‘lighter’ to compare quantities. At first children should carry out activities which involve measuring and weighing in order to compare objects. They will use suitable uniform non-standard units and then standard units for this comparison. All measurement is against a scale based on the unit we are using for comparison.
