1.0 Teaching Volume of Liquid Year 2

Introduction

Volume of liquid is one of the topic in Mathematics for Year 2 pupils in primary school. In the topics volume of liquid, pupils will be able to learn use vocabulary related to volume of practical contexts, compare the volume of liquid by direct comparison, measure volume of liquid using uniform standards unit and standards unit.

Mathematics teacher find out that Year 2 pupils will have a misconception in the topic   volume of liquid:

Misconception 1: Mathematical language – confusion between liquid volume and capacity. Liquid volume is measured in millilitres and litres and solid volume in cubic centimetres and metres.Only containers have capacity. The capacity of a container is the maximum volume of liquid that it can hold. Hence capacity is measured in the same units as liquid volume. Thus, a wine glass may have a capacity to hold 250ml, but the liquid volume of the wine may only be 150ml.

Misconception 2: Conservation of liquid. Pupils often believe that the amount of liquid has changed when a set amount has been poured from one container to another of a different size. They believe that there is more liquid in the one that has the highest level e.g. the left hand containers in figures b and c.

Piaget would argue that children are not able to understand this notion of conservation until they have reached the Concrete operational stage of development (7 - 11 years).

In this situation, teacher need to think and creates different teaching and learning activities with different teaching aids to help pupils understand and able to measure and compare volume of liquid using uniform standards unit and standards unit.