Measuring Feet

We talked about length, perimeter and area and then measured the area of our feet. We traced our feet and then used squares to fill them in. We counted how many squares we used and then wrote our name on a piece of paper and put it above that number on the number line.  We followed the squares with pennies and beans. We grouped them into tens and ones and counted the total.

We had a fun discussion about why my foot was way out to the right and why theirs were all pretty close together.

Measure Me

The students drew themselves and then measured their different body parts with paper clips and recorded their answers.

The Best Measuring Tool

So I just finished my K-2 Common Core math class and here is one of the tools we learned about. Measuring with small sticky notes. When measuring smaller things it was great but got harder as the items got bigger. Here's where the cool part comes in...you put the sticky notes together to create a paper ruler. The students can see why it's important to have different size measuring tools and why it's easier to measure and count larger things with a bigger tool.

The patterned sticky notes make the units easier to see. The students can make them as big as they need to. I just used a piece of construction paper. Another cool thing about sticky notes is that they can be folded in half, unlike blocks so you can get more of an exact measurement and talk a little about fractions as well. This will  help the students out tremendously when they start learning about standard measurement in second grade.   

Non-Standard Measurement

After watching an introduction to non standard measurement from Math Monsters we practiced measuring things around the room with cubes. I gave them little sticky pads so they could mark off tens and use them to count the cubes when they were done measuring. They wanted to measure each other and ME so when we were finished we used those numbers as our start with/get to numbers. Such as Bailey was 70 cubes tall and I was 98 cubes tall. How many cubes would Bailey have to grow to be as tall as I am. We discovered that most of the class was 60 something cubes tall.

How Tall Online Game

Click HERE to print measurement worksheets.

Measurement Worksheets
First Graders Measure Up
Measuring FUN
Non-Standard Measurement Worksheets from Lory's Page