It’s back-to-school time again! You’re learning a new set of names and getting used to a sea of new faces, and students are meeting new classmates and finding their way around new learning spaces and routines.
One way to help kids familiarize themselves with their classrooms and work on math skills at the same time is with a measurement activity. If you’d like to capitalize on the opportunity and let students get to know their classmates, consider pairing students together.
For those who school at home, don’t worry! This activity is also a great way for kids to gain a deeper understanding of their living space.
Materials:
rulers and/or measuring tapes (one for each student or each pair of students)
list of items for students to find and measure
1. Choose Items to Measure
This is a highly personalized activity, so you’ll have to put in a little bit of thought to start off. What items are the most important or most interesting in your classroom? Consider things like homework bins, hall passes, behavior charts, items in specific centers, and the like.
Write or type up a sheet listing the items you want students to find and measure. Print enough copies for each student or for each pair of students.
2. Measure!
Pass out the rulers or measuring tapes and the copies of the item lists, and let’s get to measuring!
Students will go on a mini scavenger hunt to find and record the measurement of each item on the list, learning their classroom in the process. If you’d like to build a foundational sense for conversions, ask for measurements in both customary and metric units.
For students in upper elementary grades who have some familiarity with area or volume, consider asking for measurements in multiple dimensions for items where doing so makes sense, such as books, bins, or charts. If you and your learners are particularly ambitious, you could even ask for the dimensions of the floor to calculate the size of the room!
3. Discuss
Come back together as a group and review the measurements the children recorded. Could everyone find every item? Did everyone record approximately the same numbers? Practice number comparisons by ordering objects according to size. Calculate area and volume if you chose to include that. After all, measuring skills are important, but it’s what people do with those measurements that matter most!
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After this hands-on activity, your students will be ready to take on the school year in their new classroom! You can then use Super Teacher Worksheets’ collection of measurement activities to reinforce their measuring skills or use the back-to-school resources to continue breaking the ice.
