Measure This, Measure That

We have started a new unit on measurement.  First, we worked with a partner and used our hands to measure many different things in the classroom.  We realized that our answers to what we measured were different!  After much discussion we discovered that our hands were different sizes and that's why we got different answers.  We decided that we would measure with the same "tool" or "unit" the next day.  We thought if we did that then we should all get the same answers.  We used chalk brushes.  Here are some pictures of us measuring things and discussing our results

.






We met again to talk about our results and we were stumped!  We still got lots of different answers for the same thing!  Hmmm. . . . . 



We began to ask how people were measuring their items.  We had many volunteers come up and show  us how they were using their chalk brush.  We discovered some people were using the it horizontally to measure and others were using it vertically.  We also found out some people weren't starting right at the edge of the object and some were leaving spaces between the brushes!  Finally, we came up with a set of guidelines to use while we are measuring.  Here is our chart reminding us how to accurately measure things. 

Here is a short video of us measuring the whiteboard using a chalk brush and following the guidelines from our chart.

Finally, we heard one student say, "This would be so much easier if we used rulers!"  I think that might work!  We plan to try that next time and see if everybody gets the same results when they measure the same thing.


Do you measurement in your job?  What types of things do you measure?  What tools do you use?