Brain boosting month: how much does it weigh?

Who says August has to be a brain-drain month? Join me for a summer of brain boosting fun!

All through August I’m asking the children a Brain Boosting question each day and inviting them to explore what the answer might be. Each question will be a prompt for the children to think, question, wonder, explore, discover and learn! Will you join us?

Join in with the Brain Boosting Questions

I’ll be posting a question a day here and on Nurturestore’s Facebook page, so hop on over and follow us. I’ll be blogging some of the discoveries my kids make and re-visiting some of our favourite ideas from Nurturestore’s archive. We might have a few guest questions from other kids bloggers too.

We’ll be covering lots of different topics, including art, science, writing and maths. Each question is designed to be open to the children to explore an idea their way and gives plenty of scope for them to try out ideas, discover new things and learn some new skills. Each activity will be really easy for you to set up at home, with no special equipment needed.

Will you join us? Watch out for the questions each day, give them a try, and come and tell us how you got on by joining the chat on our Facebook page.

Brain Boosting Question #1: how much does a pig weigh?

Today’s question is an invitation to explore weight and scales. It lets children estimate and predict results, and use their brains to be the teacher, thinking up questions to ask each other (or you!)

I set out our weighing scales, a toy pig, and some clipboards with paper and pencils.

These are a set of vintage kitchen scales, which the children really liked the look of, but any will do. With very young children you might just like to observe how the needle moves along the dial as you place things of different weight on the scales. Older children could read the exact measurements and chat about why we have grammes and ounces on the scale.

I wrote out some questions to get things started. Even if your children are pre- or beginner- readers it’s always good to include reading and writing whenever you can, and let the children see how you’re using them for a practical purpose.

Brain Boosting Questions to consider

You could ask:

:: how much does a toy pig weigh? or a car? or a Barbie? (whatever your kids love) introduce the idea of weighing and explore how the scales work

:: is an apple heavier than the pig? thinking about comparison and trying some prediction

:: can you find something bigger but lighter than the toy pig? realising that bigger doesn’t always mean heavier

:: is the pig lighter than 15 Lego bricks? feeling both and estimating, and counting 

Then turn the tables and ask the children to make up three questions to ask each other – or you. Tell them they can make them as difficult as they like, so long as they can work out the correct answer. My girls were gleeful at the thought of being each others teacher.

This is a good way to build writing in with the investigating. Younger children might like you to scribe for them but if they can, let them do the writing themselves. The Brain Boosting is happening as they wonder, formulate and answer their questions – so correct spellings aren’t important .

Give it a try!

Then come on over to our Facebook page and tell us what you weighed and how your investigations worked out.

If your kids love the weighing, you could develop it into some cooking with some of our child-friendly recipes.

Click through for Brain Boosting Question #2!

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