February 12, 2015
Our Winter Farm Trip

Students have been learning about Measuring and exploring different ways to measure. We went on our Winter farm trip in January and students wanted to measure the animals that they observed on the farm. The Farmer discussed with students how the hand was used to measure the height of a horse. Students became interested in creating a mural of life size animals they saw on the farm. The farmer helped the students by measuring the animals with their hands so we would have a baseline for each animals height. When using the hand as a unit students learned it is about 4 inches.
 Students came back to school and began working on observational drawings from the farm. They drew the animal they liked and then students selected a students drawing that would become part of our wall mural. They used their original drawing and traced it on acetate and used the projector to determine the live size of each animal. The students are finishing the mural and we have decided to add some of our own students to compare animal height to students. They really enjoyed the measurement project. Students are able to identify the difference between length and height.
They understand that there are many different units that can be used to measure.

Students B: We can use our hands, cubes, blocks, paper clips!

Student M: Big John is huge! He was taller than you!

Students B: The rooster is shorter than the baby goat. He needs feathers on is tail!

 

The projected has been incorporated into Math Module 4. Students used plastic animals with paper clips, cubes, tiles to practice measuring both length and height.

 

K.MD 1. Describe measurable attributes of objects such as length.

K.MD 2. Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, which object is more/ less and describe the difference,

More to come when the mural is complete!