Photos of Our Measurement Mania!

We have been elbows deep into our measurement study for almost 2 weeks and we still have a week to go.  I’ve mentioned in several previous posts that we have had to start introducing some Common Core Standards now for fear we will not get to them in our new curriculum.

I created this pack to help my grade level team with our measurement unit.  Below I will show you several of the activities in action with 2nd grade students.  

First up was introducing measurement tools and how to use them (this is not included in the pack):

You can probably tell that this display was thrown together in about 5 min. on a Monday morning.  The good news is the tools are easily accessible and visible for students.  We are able to refer back to the tools frequently.

First, we used the tools to discuss the basics of measuring:

– where to find zero on each measuring tool

– how to line up an object on a ruler

– how to read a ruler (to the nearest whole unit)

– how to choose a measuring tool based on the object you are measuring

Then it was time to practice measuring objects.  We used the activity Monsters on the Move #1.  We did this activity together so I could monitor their measuring skills.  This activity asks students to measure 4 objects found in the classroom and to practice drawing line segments.

The next day it was time to review the basics.  I gave some instructions and helpful reminders before placing the Monsters on the Move #2 cards around the room.  Then students were given a partner, one ruler to share, their measurement packets, and a pencil.   They were so careful taking turns and making sure their partner was measuring carefully:

A few days later we worked on comparing the lengths of different school supplies.  The first six cards were fairly easy because all of the supplies are lined up with the zero.  The second set of cards had school supplies randomly placed on a ruler.  The students had some interesting conversations about how to solve them.

On another day we worked on the Measuring Monsters activity.  In this case, students looked at different monsters standing next to a centimeter ruler.  They had to record how tall each monster was.

Afterwards, we used the data to create a line plot.  Finally, I reviewed our graphing unit by asking questions that the students had to answer using the data on the line plot.

Here are some close-ups of the pages from the pack that were used above: