MEASUREMENT

Topic: Measurement Grade: First

Date of Lesson: April 19, 2018 Total Lesson Duration: 55 minutes

Learning Targets/Goal(s)
● As measurement units get bigger, measuring requires fewer of them (and vice-versa)

Common Core State Standards

Content:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.MD.A.2
Express the length of an object as a whole number of length units, by laying multiple copies of a shorter
object (the length unit) end to end; understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of
same-size length units that span it with no gaps or overlaps. ​Limit to contexts where the object being
measured is spanned by a whole number of length units with no gaps or overlaps​.

Practice:
● Students will use appropriate tools strategically
● Students will attend to precision

Instructional Materials & Resources

● Lesson adapted from Mary Bouck
● Worksheet (below)
● Monitoring chart
● Tape

Academic, Social and Linguistic Support

● In the launch section of the lesson, I will demonstrate each aspect of measuring for the students, so
they understand if they were not paying attention to what I was saying, or if they need visuals to
really understand. I will also engage students by asking many questions, which will help in keeping
more easily distracted students paying attention.
● In the explore section of the lesson, I will pair have students assigned in pairs prior to the lesson.
This will minimize conflict and distraction, allowing students to better focus on exploring the
concept of measurement around the room. I will place students who struggle to stay focused with
students who focus well, and students work more slowly with students who work at a slightly faster
pace. I will also start students at different places in the room to measure so they are able to take turns
and focus on the task rather than just waiting in line at each station.
● In the summary section of the lesson, I will collect data from each student, keeping everyone
engaged. I will also read a picture book at the end, which will explain what we were talking about in
the lesson in a different way. This will help students academically who need more processing time
and different ways of being taught.
SEQUENCE OF LESSON ACTIVITIES

LAUNCH​ (10 minutes):

● (Have strip of tape taped to the ground at the front of the room that is a half size of your feet
i.e. 9 ½ instead of 10)
● Have everyone sit on the carpet
● “We are going to start talking about a new topic about measurement. What is measurement?
What’s that all about? What does it mean to measure?”
● “How do you think people measured things way back in time?”
○ Anticipated responses: ruler, tape measure, sticks
● “What about before they even had rulers and tape measures?”
○ Anticipated responses: Sticks, rocks, leaves, bones (other things found in nature)
● “What is something people could measure with that is ​always​ on them?”
○ Feet, hands, body, head, fingers… etc
● “How could we measure with our feet?”
○ Demonstrate potential ways of measuring with feet- try overlapping, leaving spaces,
placing feet sideways… etc, asking students if they are the best ways to measure.
● “Now we’re going to measure this tape line with my feet to see how many of my feet it takes.”
○ Demonstrate measuring the line with your feet- halves are okay, but not less than that
● “How many of my feet is the line?”
● “What else can we measure with?”
○ Answer I am looking for: hands. Other anticipated responses can include anything on
the body.
● “What if one of you measured this line with your feet? Would the count be smaller or larger?
Why do you think? What might it be?” (Take guesses)
● “Would one of you like to come up and try to measure it with your feet?”
● “Hmm that’s interesting. Is that bigger or smaller than mine? We’ll explore that a little more
together during this lesson.”

EXPLORE​ (25 minutes):

● “Now we are going to split up and measure different things around the classroom using our
own hands and feet. Let me read through the worksheet you will have with things you will
have to measure. (Read through list attached to end of document- show where each one is at.
Demonstrate how to measure one or two of them. Explain that they will choose two of their
own things to measure INSIDE the room. Decide with partner, or each take turns choosing
one)
● “We will be in partners. This means we have to work together and be kind to one another. This
is a chance for us to all explore measurement together, but we need to keep our voices low
when we’re talking to each other. When something that we are measuring is on the ground, we
use our feet to measure. For everything else, we use our hands to measure. As you measure,
write down how many of your hands or feet makes up the thing you are measuring.”
● Split students up into specific pairs and place them around the world
● “You might have to share some of the stations with another group, so make sure that you are
taking turns and not arguing. If, and ONLY IF you finish early, there are more lines on the
back where you may choose your own things to measure INSIDE the classroom”
 ○ A: tape line
○ B: long side of table
○ C: short side of carpet
○ D: long side of paper
○ E: long side of iPad cart
○ F: short side of door
● I will move around the room observing students and helping only when necessary, not by
giving answers but by scaffolding
○ Issues: They might be overlapping, leaving space between their feet, measuring with
feet positioned diagonally… etc. I will ask way they think makes the most sense to
measure. I can remind them to think back on how I measured the tape line with my feet.
● I will have more blank spaces of the measuring chart on the back. If students finish early, I will
tell them to choose more items in the room to measure, writing them down on the chart and
picking either hands or feet.
● Monitoring chart:
○ Monitoring what students got when measuring the tape strip in order to help me make
the scatter plot

DISCUSS/SUMMARIZE​ (20 minutes):

● Bring students back to the carpet

● “How did you measure?”
● “What was the shortest thing you measured? How many? (Did anyone have anything shorter
than that?)”
● “What was the longest thing you measured? How many? (Did anyone have anything longer
than?)”
● “Let’s think about the tape line. Did you and your partner get the same measurement? Why or
why not? Turn and talk to your partner.”
● “Let’s look at our measurements for the tape line up here. Did anyone have anything less than
7.5 for the tape line? Did anyone have anything more than 7.5 for the tape line?”
● I will make a scatter plot showing each student’s measurement of the tape strip
○ Example:

● To make scatter plot- “Raise your hand if you measured 9. Raise your hand if you measured 9
½. Raise your hand if you measured 10….”
● “Which number of feet did the most students use to measure the tape line?”
● “This graph shows us that the most students in the class measured the tape line with ____ feet.
This is called the mode, which means the most.”
● “Why did I get a different number than all of you? Were your measurements bigger or smaller
than mine?”
● “Why do you think that is? Turn to a partner and tell them why you think that is.”
● Move around the room listening to students talking with their partners. Choose people to share
as you are listening. (Look for students on the track of- ​because her feet are bigger than ours,
so you need less of them to fill the line​)
● Ask those students to share out- “I noticed ____ was thinking hard over there. Can you tell us a
little bit about what you were telling _____ ?”
● Ask another student to explain more about what the first student was saying.
○ “____ can you try to explain to us what ______ was thinking?”
● “Like we have been talking about, the bigger the feet, the less feet will take to fill the line. The
smaller the feet, the more feet it will take to fill the line. Let’s look at this a little more as we
read a book. Pay close attention to how they are measuring things in the book, and how they
are different.”
● Read aloud ​Super Sand Castle Saturday
● “How was their story like ours?”
 Monitoring Chart

Student Measuring Overlap Gap Other (specify

Name correctly what)