Students will use the "sliding along ruler" to measure different items accurately.
For each student:
Additional Resources
Books
What: This lesson reinforces the student knowledge of linear measure and how it works.
Why: Real life situations require a working knowledge of both metric and customary measure.
How: We will be exploring the why in discussion as groups and partners and then practicing measuring skills in the activity.
2. Become mathematical problem solvers.
Invitation to Learn
Distribute a Ziploc® bag of coins to each student and provide a
choice of an object from a basket of different items such as a crayon, a
pencil, or a paper clip. Ask the students to measure the height of their
desks from the floor to the top of the desk using the item they have
chosen. They must pay $.10 a length to be able to use that desk for the
rest of the day. Have the students write a journal entry about what they
discovered, and then discuss it with a partner
Instructional Procedures
Summarize the plot of How Big Is A Foot?, highlighting the
measurement problem. Then explain what the customary measures and
metric measures are. Use a ruler and a yardstick for this. Make sure
both standard and metric measures are represented on each.
Explain to the students that sometimes we have to estimate the length of an object or a distance. To help them see the relationship between inches, feet, yards, and miles, and then between millimeters, centimeters, and meters, show them these estimates using parts of the body. A millimeter could be compared to the depth of a fingernail. A centimeter could compare to the width of a little finger. An inch is about the length of your thumb from the tip to the first knuckle. A foot is about the length of a third grader's arm from the finger tips to the elbow. Have the students practice this by demonstrating what an approximate measure would look like by holding up their own arm or thumb, etc.
Many times the measuring tool is relative to what is being measured. For example, when measuring distance on a map, a certain length of a line stands for a specific number of miles. To help teach how to measure accurately from a picture or a line that stands for a certain measurement, we are going to do an activity called Sliding Along.
Sliding Along
Facilitated Journal Activity:
Create a Sliding Synthesis Journal.
Family Connections
Research Basis
Payne, R. K. (2002) Understanding Learning the How, the Why, the What. Aha Process, Inc., Highland, TX.
Mental models are how the mind holds abstract information that has no sensory representation. In math specifically, we know that it is about assigning value and order to the universe. Mental models help us to do this. By using mental models we “collapse” the time it takes to learn and retain something.
Carpenter, T., Blanton, M., Cobb, P., Franke, M., Kaput, J., & McClain, K. (2004). Scaling Up Innovative Practices in Mathematics and Science. Research Report, National Center For Improving Student Learning and Achievement in Mathematics and Science.
“Perhaps the most important feature of learning with understanding is that it is generative: In other words, when students and teachers acquire knowledge with understanding they can apply that knowledge to learn new topics and solve unfamiliar problems. If this does not happen then each topic is viewed as an isolated skill. One way to accomplish this is for a teacher to explicitly teach.”