Cloudy With A Chance of Learning: A Measurement & Counting Activity

As our Weather Preschool unit came to a close, we spent a few days having fun with the book Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. In addition to a family movie day that began at breakfast and played out through the whole day,  the kids completed some fun learning activities and had a blast.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Math

We served up a brain watering plate of spaghetti and meatballs for some measuring and counting fun with this activity. This activity is a great hands on way to practice these important math skills. 

Meatball Counting & Measuring Activity

Supplies

For this activity, you need some basic supplies you probably already have on hand. 

-a plate, napkin, fork

-pot or bowl

-ladle/spoon

-yellow yarn or cooked spaghetti

-red pom poms

-some kind of manipulative to use for measuring + a ruler if you wish (small blocks, pouch lids, paper clips etc)

-our free printable meatball number cards which you can download below

Activity Setup

Start by setting the table with your plate, napkin, and fork. You may also want to add a fun tablecloth for extra ambiance haha We used these summery gingham plates and napkins from Dollar Tree, but you can use any type of plate you have. 

Cut some yellow yarn into pieces. I highly recommend doing it in different sized strands. Place on the plate to look like spaghetti. You may also choose to cook up some spaghetti and use that for added sensory play. 

Place ten red pom poms in a pan or bowl. We used a play kitchen pot and ladle from my kids toy kitchen set. We added a play pot holder for added fun.

How to Play and Learn

Once you have everything set up, the child will use the fork to pull a piece of “spaghetti” off the plate and lay the piece out straight across the table. Using the manipulatives you chose (we used fruit pouch lids), lay them down side by side to measure how long your piece of spaghetti is. Repeat this with the other pieces of spaghetti. You can also discuss how to measure with a ruler if you feel your child is ready for that.

Continue doing this with different strands of spaghetti. 

Once you have measured all of the spaghetti and talked about the different sizes, you can move on to adding some meatballs to the top of your spaghetti.

Print out the meatball cards printable from the end of this post and cut them out. Mix up the cards and have the child pick a card from the pile and scoop that number of “meatballs” on top of the spaghetti. This is a great way to practice counting, number recognition, and fine motor skills.

We hope you have as much fun with this activity as we did, but just remember if you don’t want to lose your meatball, be careful not to sneeze ;-)

Grab Your Free Printable Below