Measurement Mania!

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Archive : 2003 : November : 25

Measurement Mania!
By Heidi

I love this unit! Our school did a multi-age math enrichment day where we hit several measurement outcomes for all ages. Kids rotated through stations throughout the school. But here are a few things I do just with my
class:
Cut a 2 strips of coloured paper to the length of a decimeter (assuming you teach metric in Canada). Post one somewhere obvious in the class when kids aren't looking. Show students the other one as a sample and send them on a decimeter hunt. When they find it, they cannot tell anyone, but come up and initial the front board or a sheet of chart paper. I do this a couple of times

a week and they LOVE the activity. I hide it in tougher places each time, but all easily seen from their seats so kids can spend the day gawking around for it when they have a minute free. The object of this is to familiarize them with the size of a decimeter.

I also do a playground scavenger hunt. I prepare a photocopied sheet and they work with a partner. We have a track and field mesuring tape for long distances, a trundle wheel for really long distances, and they also have rulers and meter sticks. I aks them to measure the width of a stair on the slide, the height of the step they come up to get inside, the length of my car (named Bing!), then I ask how many times Bing will fit in the field (they measure the field and work hard to figure out the area as best they can), I even ask them to find the longest blade of grass they can and to measure it. They like being able to run here and there searching for the answers.