Beshalach- Measurement related activities

"This is the thing that Hashem has commanded, 'Gather from it, for every man according to what he eats- an omer per person- according to the number of your souls, everyone according to whomever is in his tent shall you take." ~Shemot 16:16

"They measured in an omer and whoever took more had nothing extra and whoever took less was not lacking; everyone according to what he eats had they gathered." ~Shemot 16:18

"It happened on the sixth day that they gathered double bread, two omers for each; and all the princes of the assembly came and they told Moshe." ~Shemot 16:22 

Rashi on Shemot 16:22 explains that the Israelites actually collected the same amount when they went out on Fridays, but when they came home to measure how much they had, they found that they had 2 omers.

"The omer is a tenth of an ephah." ~Shemot 16:36

Rashi on Shemot 16:36 explains- 
1 ephah = 3 se'in
1 se'ah = 6 kabin
1 kav = 4 lugin
1 log = 6 beitzim
1 beitzah = the volume of 1 egg
Therefore, a tenth of an ephah is 43 beitzim & 1/5 of a beitzah

(Chart from Artscroll Series, The Sapirstein Edition; Student size edition; Vol 2- Shemos/Exodus pg 198)

Activity Connections:
Activity ideas in increasing conceptual difficulty:

• [Pre-activity 1] Younger students begin learning about measurement by playing with standard and non-standard measurements. Young students may begin by playing around with how many paper-clips long different items are, how many blocks tall each of their friends is (using standard size blocks), or how many classroom cups of water or rice it takes to fill a container. By playing around with these non-standard measurements, they get a sense of how to compare lengths of items without needing to worry about how to read rulers or measuring cups. Following-up on a non-standard activity, students can have a discussion about how you might be able to talk about your non-standard activities with students in other classes. What if their paperclips/blocks/cups are a different size? How could you express your measurements to those students? This helps illustrate for them where standard measurements are needed.
• [Pre-activity 2] Younger students can also have an opportunity to investigate different containers or items that have been pre-measured with standard units for them to compare quart/liter/gallon, inch/foot/yard- or metric equivalents. 
• Connecting to this week's parsha, a pre-measured container could also show the estimated volume of an omer (based on our understanding of the measurement- see below), so that students can see how much food each Israelite was apportioned for each day in the desert.
• Using a pre-measured "Omer Container" students could play with the measurement and see how it compares to our current day measurements. Using investigation- which is bigger- an omer or a quart? an omer or a gallon? How many of the smaller measure does it take to make up the larger measure? Can you express the smaller measure as a fractional amount of the larger measure? These are two different ways of expressing the same equivalency based on the measure you use for a frame of reference (ie 2 cups = 1 pint; 1/2 pint = 1 cup).
• Older students can work on calculating conversions based on the information provided by Rashi in 16:36. How do the different Biblical measures compare to each other? A modern day understanding of the volume of a beitzah is indicated here as 2.53 fl. oz. (or 75 ml). Using this understanding of beitzah, what would each of the other volume measurements be in Rashi's explanation? Ultimately, working through the calculations, what would the volume of an omer have actually been? What would that look like in current day measures? What was the volume of food that the Israelites had for each day's sustenance? What did the volume collected on Fridays (in preparation for Shabbat) look like?