COW: Grade 2 | Use direct and indirect measurement to solve problems: Outcome 4

COW:Grade 2 | Use direct and indirect measurement to solve problems: Outcome 4 (page 37)

At first when I looked at this outcome I immediately thought of using different objects as indirect measurement tools. If you go to http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/AreWeThereYet/default.htm#page6 they demonstrate what I was thinking at first glance.  It is an American website but the ideas conveyed are quite effective and it would be fairly easy to replicate using metric units of measurement.  ie. one meter=the distance between student's outstretched arms.

 I didn't even think of using terms such as largest, longest, thinnest, shortest, thickest and the like.  All of these terms imply indirect measurement when you are asking a student to visually find the answer.  Objects need to be compared to one another in order to find the answer.  I found a cute game on the pbskids website at http://pbskids.org/clifford/games/measuring_up.html that goes through many of these terms.  While I think it goes over the terms quite well, it is at a much lower level than grade 2 and I feel students would tire of it quite quickly.

How does this outcome relate to my big idea?

Using indirect measurement is another way of showing students that a number can be represented in more than one way.  In fact they can be represented in a number of ways even in such a relatively small activity.

1m=student's armspan=100cm=? footsteps=?hands  and so on...

Students can use visual appearances to predict which objects in a set are largest, widest, longest etc and then use a multitude of things to measure them and finally get actual measurements and compare all of their findings.

I think this would be a great hands-on engaging lesson and as a teacher you can easily incorporate student's culture, interests and ways of knowing.

On a side note...my youngest son uses power poles to determine how far we are from the next town when we are driving.  He knows there are 10 poles in a km so if we have 25km to go he says, "Okay, so 250 power poles.  Right Mom?"  You betcha my boy!  :)