Capacity

Last week my math class learned about capacity.  The students first arranged 5 containers in order from least to greatest and then they used beans to determine if they were right.  I didn't tell them how  to use the beans.  It was really interesting to listen to the groups' discussions about how to use the beans in order to figure out if they had their containers in the correct order.  Next, they had to find containers that had a capacity of 1 cup, 1 pint, 1 quart, 1 gallon and 1 liter and use the beans again with various measurement tools.  For the last bean activity the students had to first estimate and then prove how many cups are in a pint and so on.