Students at a young age have a very difficult time understanding and using measurement. One activity that I have used as a culminating exercise with my fifth graders is to have them use their measurement skills to measure objects around the school building. The kids love it! I conduct it as a two day event but of course the activity can be modified to accomodate the skill level and time that is available for teaching Math. This activity is truly a "hands-on, minds-on" activity and challenges students to work as a team and apply what they have learned over the course of the unit. Application of a skill is considered a high level skill and although the students enjoy the freedom of being out of the classroom, the activity is not easy.
Tracy Fields
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Measuring What We See
Measuring is fun! We use it for everything we do. Whether we are cooking our favorite foods or building a home. Without measuring we would not have shoes that fit correctly! As you go through your day,think about all the things you measure. You'll be surprised.
Math is All Around Us
Measuring What We See
Tracy Fields
- Tracy
- Florida, United States
- Hi everyone and welcome to my blog. I am very excited to be hosting a blog dedicated to something that is very important to me. Please feel free to share your love of Math and Measuring
5 comments:
Hi Tracy,
Math was actually one of my least favorite subjects in school. I just didn't do well with numbers and soemtimes, I still don't.
It wasn't until I started teaching that I grew to appreciate the subject and found that yes, it can be fun. Of course, teaching math curriculum to students with special needs always had to be hands-on regardless of the skill being taught. One of my favorite units was money skills. I would set-up a pretend store in the classroom with real foods and other items. The students would take turns being the cashier and customers. At the end of the week, they could actually buy something from the store with their pretend money. The class absolutely loved this activity and certainly learned how to make change.
Hi Tracy,
Your first post nailed it!! Measurement is an area of math that children really struggle to understand. As a Reading Coach, when I work side by side with teachers, one of the first things that I do is pull test scores for the students in their classes. I want to show them,and later their students, what their focus should be for the school year. FCAT scores are a wonderful start because they break down each area and show how many a child mastered. For example, on the math FCAT breakdown it may say that that a child got 1/5 correct on measurement questions. Well, this is a great talking point, tutoring start, or independent and dependent practice activity.I always wondered how teachers could teach without knowing the data on their classroom. When teachers worry about getting all their benchmarks taught before testing, I tell them that they may want to begin with the ones when the data shows is the biggest need. Those will definitely take the most time. At least if they fall short, they will have mastered the ones the students need the most.This is what it means when you hear someone say data should drive the curriculum. Tracy, keep talking about math. Just know that I am going to share your finished product with our math department chair as a reference point. Have a great day.
Patricia
As children enjoy the summer, they should be exploring and discovering things around them. They should be exposed to the world of mathematics. It is important for children to learn math at home and school. Math is important for this technological age. Children should be exposed to a variety of activities that will help children learn and apply concepts to everyday life. Geometry, algebra, measurement, statistics, and probability can be taught in a useful and fun way. There are activities that can be done at home, the grocery store, and while traveling.
A parent’s attitude about math can impact on how children think about any type of math problem. As adults we should encourage kids to think mathematically. A positive attitude is important to success in math. I think that by doing various hands on activities children will enjoy exploring math concepts. Measuring items around a school building is challenging for students. It builds on a lot of math skills. I also did this activity. I started with having kids estimate before they measured. The kids enjoyed seeing if their estimations were correct. Parents could reinforce this activity at home by having kid’s measure objects in the house. If we worked together as a team, children would have a better attitude and more success with math.
Hi!! Your measurement activity sounds like so much fun. I too teach fifth graders and am always looking for ways to stimulate them and to get them to apply the things they have learned. I recently did a workshop that taught me many new things and as the instructor went over concepts, I would try my best to understand what he was saying. When I had the chance to do it and apply the knowledge, it made much more sense to me.
MaShawn
Hi Tracy,
As someone who has always been intimidated by numbers, it is exciting to learn the creative ways that you are helping your students to appreciate math and apply what they have learned. As with reading, writing, and speaking, it is important that our children recognize that we utilize number skills everyday on many diffierent levels and in many different ways.
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