Student Work

In my Kindergarten classroom, my mentor teacher did an interesting lesson about measurement. Currently, some of the students do not understand why we use rulers and why they are so helpful to us. This activity was a quick introduction to how we can measure items around the room with our foot size. First, the students traced their foot on construction paper and cut it out. Then they went around the classroom and measured various items to get used to measuring. The purpose of this lesson seemed to be to get the students thinking about why we measure things and how we can do this. The big idea would be why we measure things in the world and thinking about the purpose of measurement. One way to get students thinking would be to ask two students to measure the same item with each of their feet and see if their results are the same. Then you could ask them why or why not they were similar. Another way is to have students predict how many of their feet will be needed to measure a certain item. This could be difficult for students to guess, but it is a good way to check and see if they are on the right track with the idea of measurement.

Each of the students went around the room to measure the items they were curious about. They also would measure the same thing and compare with each other how many of their feet it took. The teacher also made sure to teach the students how to stick the foot on the item and place the finger where the foot ended to get accurate measurements. This math activity would show a teacher that a student knows how to measure a simple object with their cut out foot, and if they can compare and discuss their results with their classmates. This gets students thinking about measurement they could easily do every day. You could advance student thinking by asking them why we use a standard measurement instead of our own feet. You could also ask them if everyone would get the same measurements every time, and whether or not this would be a problem.