Early Math Counts

posted by Stephanie Forsman

Measurement is an area of my math curriculum that I often feel gets neglected, rushed through, and sometimes, at crunch time, overlooked all together.  As a result, I have worked on infusing small aspects of measurement into the routines of the day.  From linear measurement to volume, weight and mass to telling time, temperature and money, measurement is an everyday skill, “real life math.” It is important that children know how to identify appropriate units and choose the correct tools and technology for measuring those units.

One of my favorite topics that I consistently revisit throughout the year is Time. Even in 3rd and 4th grade, some children cannot tell time and rely on the adults in their life to tell them where they need to be and when. At the beginning of the school year, regardless of what grade I am teaching, I do a quick lesson on Time – 24 hours in a day, AM & PM, the short hand is the hour hand and the long hand is the minute hand. One of my favorite tools to teach Time is a Judy Clock. I have a class set and each student has one in which they practice telling time and learning the concept of elapsed time. A Judy Clock features easy-to-read numerals that show elapsed time in 5 min intervals. The clock makes learning to tell the time simple and fun for children and comes with visible functioning gears that maintain correct hour hand and minute hand relationships.

 

I will routinely ask the children to show me the time on their clocks or I will pose questions, “if it is 10:45 AM now and we have lunch at 12:00 PM, how much time does that leave us for snack and math?” Another handy time telling tool I have is a rubber clock stamp.

I will routinely ask the children to show me the time on their clocks or I will pose questions, “if it is 10:45 AM now and we have lunch at 12:00 PM, how much time does that leave us for snack and math?” Another handy time telling tool I have is a rubber clock stamp.

When I put up the day’s schedule on the board, I will put the event and the time and then have a blank picture of a clock where the children will draw in the correct time using the hour and minute hands.  I will write times such as “Math – 10:45 AM” with a blank clock next to it and make sure that the child responsible for noting the time will make sure that the hour hand is closer to the number 11 than to the number 10.

Just like my parents did with my brother and I when we were growing up, I like to have a height chart located on the inside of my doorway. One of our beginning of the year activities is to partner up and mark your height on the door. I use a cloth tape measure for this activity and it does require a pre-lesson on how to use the measurement instrument. The first year that I did this activity, I just gave the children the tape measure and had them go at it. I quickly realized that the majority of the children did not know what to do when they had run out of tape measure but still had not completely measured their friend. I have a class set of 60 inch, cloth tape measures that the children use throughout the year. I find that the cloth tape measures are easier to manipulate, cheaper, and easier to store.  After a lessons in which we discuss “How many inches in a foot?” and “If a child measures 52 inches, how would we record that in feet and inches?”, we place our names, the date and our heights against the door. We do this activity 3 times a year and at the end of the year, each child figures out how much they’ve grown through the school year. In our end-of-the-year reflection, we include our physical growth as part of the child’s reflection, “This year, I have grown 3 ½ inches and have become a much more of a risk taker when approaching difficult math problems.”

It is also extremely important to allow them exploration of various types of measurement tools and educate them to which tool is best for which situation.  Measuring how long things are, how tall they are, or how far apart they might be are all examples of length measurements. I expose the children to all sorts of measurement units in which they can use to measure various objects. Centimeters, inches, feet, yards, miles, and kilometers are all the units we use to measure distance, height, and length.

We brainstorm items we’d like to measure and then categorize them according to the units of measurement we’d use.

I like to put this conversion chart up in the classroom for constant reference –

1 foot = 12 inches

1 yard = 3 feet = 36 inches

1 mile = 1,760 yards = 5,280 feet = 63,360 inches

Liquid measurement is another aspect of measurement that when I run across it, often need to look up a conversion chart to make sure that I am measuring correctly. I am not always certain that 2 pints equal a quart since I very rarely use these units of measurement.  Again, this is when a conversion chart comes in handy but we make our own “Gallon Man” with empty, recycled containers that the children bring in from home. We bring in one plastic gallon (milk), 4 quarts (milk or juice), 8 pints (ice cream, yogurt), and 16 cups (yogurt, sour cream). Preferably all plastic and clean. Before I put up a conversion chart, I essentially create a water table and see if the children can come up with the equivalents on their own. “How many quarts equal a gallon?”, “If there are 2 cups in a pint, how many cups in a quart?” After figuring out the conversions ourselves, we create “Gallon Man.” We actually create this by attaching the quarts to the gallon with holes and wires for the arms and legs and then 2 pints to each quart and finally, 2 cups to each pint. We should rename our creature “Gallon Robot” or “Conversion Robot.”

We hang up “Gallon Man” in our classroom for easy reference.

Teaching measurement or any concept for that manner, using hands-on activities, manipulatives, and real-life applications makes concepts more interesting, engaging, and fun for my students. I get a lot of my ideas from Pinterest and often, these “real life math” lessons take little time and don’t take away time from keeping pace with my mandatory math curriculum.