Spatial Relationships
Activities that promote spatial relationships focus on encouraging children to locate bodies or objects in space, use their knowledge of spatial relationships to describe where something is located, interpret representations of spatial relationships (mapping), and represent spatial relationships with symbols (mapping). Active games such as hide and seek, duck-duck goose, or building an obstacle course build spatial awareness.
Measurement
Children learn to measure first by nonstandard means such as pacing off distances and later with uniform but nonstandard measurement tools (e.g., measuring the width of a tabletop with paper clips) and later still with conventional measurement tools. As they do so, they develop a sense of the kinds of things that are measured. Concepts related to measurement include measuring to represent comparisons, using a variety of different tools to measure, and seeing estimation as useful but not the same thing as accurate measurement. We encourage children to think about measurement with questions that start with “How far,” How much,” How long,” and so on.