B B C Northern Ireland Learning
One Potato,Two Potato
Autumn 2002
What a Weight!
Programme 10
by Isobel Gamble
26 November
To conclude this term’s topic on food, this week’s final programme will be looking at weight and
weighing things.
Poems
The School Bag
Mum sat watching TV
With a cup of tea on her knee.
Jamie peeked in through the crack in the door.
“Please Mum can I bring my racing car and track –
I want to show Jack how far it will go.”
“Don’t forget your lunch box, dear.”
So Jamie grabbed a big bottle of coke.
“I need the encyclopaedia,
we’re doing a project on Tangier.”
“And your pencil case, it’s behind the settee,”
“AND my football boots, teacher said so.”
CRASH……BANG……PLONK!
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“Nothing, Mum. Just bring the car at half past three.”
Isobel Gamble
How Heavy Are You?
How heavy are you?
As light as a feather?
As heavy as lead?
The same as a blanket
Thrown down on a bed?
As heavy as a hippo,
As light as a mouse?
Or the same as an elephant
Sitting on a house?
As light as a tadpole?
As heavy as a frog?
The same as a crocodile
Asleep on a log?
How heavy are YOU?
Irene Yates
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/education
33
What a Weight!
One Potato, Two Potato
Autumn 2002
I Don’t Know
When we make biscuits
We weigh out the butter
And sugar and flour
And cut with the cutter –
But what would happen,
I’d like to know,
If……….
Instead of weighing it all just so
We helped the flour to overflow
And let the sugar just fall like snow
And gave the butter the old heave-ho
And dripped in currants high and low
And poured lots of milk into the dough
And mixed it fast and mixed it slow
And watched the mixture grow and grow
What would happen I’d like to know –
Would we still get biscuits?
Irene Yates
When the Giant Stayed for Breakfast
When the giant stays for breakfast
He eats his cornflakes with a spade,
Followed by a lorry-load
Of toast and marmalade.
Next he takes a dustbin
That’s filled with tea,
Drinks it all up in one gulp,
And leaves the washing-up for me.
John Coldwell
Story
Mum set her big bag of nuts on one end of the seesaw and then pointed to her baby squirrels
Topsy and Turvey. “Put your two bag on the other end. If your two little bags together weigh
as much as my one big bag, you will have enough nuts to last you through the winter….
After the programme
words for discussion:- encyclopaedia; weighing scales; ingredients; to be ‘perfectly
balanced’; to starve.
- Begin a project on weight by making sure the children are familiar with the concept of
heavy and light (many children confuse weight and size, and assume that large things will
always be heavier).
- See what the children carry in their schoolbags/lunch boxes. What makes them heavy?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/education
34
What a Weight!
One Potato, Two Potato
Autumn 2002
Compare weights.
- Talk about why goods need to be weighed in the shop.
- Talk through the process of weighing your own fruit or vegetables in the supermarket.
- Talk about our measuring system of weighing things accurately in grams and kilos.
- Using a small seesaw compare weights – e.g. how many books does someone ‘weigh’.
- Make up an observation table with objects of different weights to be lifted and handled.
Encourage the use of the language of comparison i.e. heavier, lighter, heaviest, lightest.
- Make up some mystery parcels for a pretend post office demonstrating that weight is
not related to size.
- Talk about why ingredients need to be weighed for baking or cooking.
- Make sure the children understand the story i.e.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/education
35
What a Weight!
One Potato, Two Potato
Autumn 2002
- Talk about other familiar places as well as shops where items need to be weighted,
and why e.g. post offices and airports.
- Weighing babies – why is it important.
- Talk about how some very heavy items are lifted e.g. by fork-lift truck, crane,
hydraulic lifting gear, winches.
some idioms:- as light as air; like a ton of bricks; light as a feather; as heavy as lead;
featherweight; deadweight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/education
36
What a Weight!
One Potato, Two Potato
Autumn 2002
Northern Ireland Curriculum
Maths
Measures:
Pupils should have opportunities to: compare and order
objects, developing and using mathematical language
associated with weight; use non-standard units in
weight to measure a range of everyday objects; appreciate
important ideas about measurement including the need for
appropriate accuracy; recognise the need to use standard units;
know the most commonly used units for weight; make estimates
using arbitrary and standard units e.g. ‘heavier
or lighter than a kilogram’.
Cross-Curricular Links
English
Maths
- comparative language
- idioms
- weight
Programme 10:
What a Weight!
Science
- weighing experiments
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/education
37