The Teacher's Corner
Puzzles and Activities
Measurement Lesson Plans
Your creativity can help other teachers. Submit your math lesson plan or activity today. Don't forget to include additional resources, documents, or a photo.
This indicates resources located on The Teacher's Corner.
Dinosaur Drawings Grades: K-6th
Summary: Use sidewalk chalk and dinosaur measurements in this artful activity to make drawings that can help with perspective and understanding.
Ant Rulers Grades 3-6
Summary: A fun and creative way for students to learn how to use and read a ruler.
One of the best ideas I used recently was to teach the students how to read a ruler. It's amazing how few kids really understand the division of the ruler into 1/4's, 1/8's, 16th's, etc.
MATERIALS: strips of narrow paper, cut into any length
METHOD:
1. I gave everyone a narrow strip of paper. I told them that the length of the paper was a new unit called "ant-units." It represents the distance an ant can walk in 1 minute.
2. I made up some silly story about a picnic that they needed to get to, etc, just to get their attention. Then after a minute or two I had the fold the paper in half.
3. We talked about the fact that the ant-unit was now in 2 parts, and if an ant walked to the fold and stopped he had only walked 1 of the 2 parts (1/2) of the distance.
4. I had them write the fraction 1/2 on the fold, near the edge of the paper.
5. Then we folded in back in 1/2, and folded it again.
6. This time when they opened it we talked about the fact that it was now divided into 4 sections, & wrote the fractions 1/4, 2/4, 3/4 on the appropriate folds. Of course, 2/4 had to go right below the 1/2 we had already written.
7. We did the same thing twice more, dividing the piece of paper into 1/8's & 1/16's.
8. Whenever we came to a fold that already had a fraction written there, I asked the students to write the new fraction below the previous one.
9. For a quick fraction review I asked some questions like, "if Timmy ant walked 3/4 of the distance and Jimmy ant walked 7/8 of the distance in one minute, who walked the farthest?" "If the ants had a timed race, and at the end of 20 seconds there were ants on the 3/8, 3/16, & 3/4 marks, who won the race?" etc. We also reviewed equivalent fractions this way.
10. I been writing the fractions on the whiteboard the whole time the students were folding their "ant-units." Without saying anything I started drawing lines down from the edge of my "ant trail" to the bottom of each fraction or set of fractions. Of course, the line for the 1/2 mark was longest, because it had 1/2, 2/4, 4/8, & 8/16 lined up one beneath the other. The 1/4 mark was the second longest, etc.
11. By the time I finished drawing the lines, some of the kids caught on that it looked just like a ruler! (I call this the "light-bulb" feeling because you can see the light going on inside when kids can say, "OOOHHH - I get it now!")
Submitted by: C. DAMIGO (This lesson was printed in The Teacher's Corner http://teacherscorner.bc.ca/index.html weekly newsletter.)
Printable Math Worksheets
Use our Math Worksheet Generators to whip out some printable math worksheets in a snap!
EMAIL us your favorite measurement lesson plan.