How much did I weigh when I was born?



This week our youngest daughter needed a photo of herself as a baby to take to school for a project.  The photo she chose was the one we sent out with her birth notices.
When I was scanning the photo, she was busy  reading her own birth notice!

Our elder daughter has recently been studying weights (kg and g) at school, and so these two circumstances together led to an interesting activity with my kitchen scales.


First, the girls happily weighed various items they found lying around; then we moved onto their own birth weights and how we could reproduce that.

My pantry was searched and various foodpackets showing their weights were pulled out - sugar, custard powder and pasta.  We then weighed each item (to check the weight stated on the packet was correct!) - we found a few grams variance but basically they were right.  Then I piled up the various food packets into the girls arms until they were each holding the equivalent weight to themselves as newborn babies! 

They both thought this was great fun, especially when I showed them the difference between the two of them at birth was a packet of bow pasta!!

Since our eldest is learning about weights, I had thought that helping me with some baking would be a great way to  get some real-life and useful practice of weighing.  Today's 'newborn weight' activity was not something I had thought of - it just happened naturally.

It just goes to show that sometimes the best ways to help our children learn and practice things occur spontaneously; it's just a matter of being aware of the potential value of everyday situations and activities.

The girls practising weights measurement through relating it to their own weight as a baby was fun, and more likely to stick with them than say a worksheet full of numbers and weights.

Do you have any stories like this, where real life and circumstance provided a surprising opportunity to learn and practice something -either for yourself or your children?




7 comments:

  1. What a fantastic project! You really seized that teachable moment. Because Little Bit is only one the last educational thing I did for him was to make some flash cards. I got out some old magazines and cut out real life pictures. I glued the pictures to note cards. Now I show him the cards and tell him the names of the object on the cards. He seems to enjoy looking at the cards. He points to then card with pictures of babies on it and says eee, eee. I guess that mean something on the lines of, hey they look like me! Thanks for the idea. I will be filing it away for later :D

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  2. That is just the best idea ever! Thanks for the follow, loving your blog and happy to return the favor:) http://www.mammatown.blogspot.com

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  3. What a neat idea! Your girls are so sassy and intelligent =) I look forward to learning more about then!

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  4. haha.. this is so something My sisters and I would do when we were little... esp the part where we made mom take out EVERYTHING out of the pantry just to get certain weights ;) hehe. So glad you stopped by my blog and i found yours! :) ... yes, the belly is small now- and i'm thankful for that until it does get the ripples, and i can't see my toes. lol

    xoxo
    laura

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  5. How much did I weigh when I was born... a lot less than I do now! Thanks for visiting me at A Season for All Things. ~ Ellen

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  6. Thank you so much for visiting my blog. I am following you back. I have looked at your blog and love all of your creative ideas! I look forward to using them with my daughter someday! Have a great week!
    Brooke
    http://www.theintentionalmomma.blogspot.com/

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  7. That is a fantastic thing to do. I can easily do this with my daughter's when they are older... they both weighed the same!
    Kimberlee at The Spunky Diva 

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