Winter Measurement

I love to teach measurement! While I always try to incorporate hands on activities for all math lessons (in one way or another), measurement just screams for hands on practice! Not only do we get to use the beloved unifix cubes, but we also get to measure with other various objects, like paperclips and snowmen!

Snowmen? What? Hold your horses – we’ll get to that in a minute.

Our curriculum to teach measurement is pretty bland, so I definitely had to search for some better ways to practice this fun skill. We absolutely love working in our math journals, so I whipped up some cut and paste to practice ordering by length. There were a few pages we did that were some random items, but they really enjoyed this Snow Day themed pack. (We are still excited about the snow that came last week – West TN doesn’t normally get that much!) 

Once they cut and pasted them (with our beloved glue sponges!), they absolutely loved coloring the pictures. I read an article about how big of a craze the adult coloring books are lately, yet we don’t give our students time to color. My kiddos LOVE to color in the black and white clip art that I use in the room – they are kids and just want to color! I do too, actually. Plus, it helps with those fine motor skills, right? I’m all about teaching to the whole child, including coloring.

Once we had practiced ordering things by length, it was finally time to measure things! Beyond measuring with cubes and paperclips, I thought it would be fun to get up and move around. We took turns measuring each other in small groups with snowmen! I *carefully* placed the kiddos in groups of 4 to take turns measuring the other members in their groups with our non standard unit of snowmen. 

Looking back, it might have been a good idea for my students to have numbered the snowmen so they didn’t have the count the units for each person, but hey – you live and you learn. They were THRILLED to be out of their seats and being able to apply what they had been learning. I walked around and help make sure they were using the materials correctly, like making sure they were putting the snowmen end to end without overlapping and weren’t hitting each other. ;)

Our last activity as a review before our test was to order our family members by length at home! It was a fun way to see the students applying what we were learning with their family members. While my only directions were to order the members, I had several family measure everyone – some with inches (what a great extension!) and some with other nonstandard measurements, like pencils! I love when my families get involved! It might help that I promised 5 bonus points on the test if it was brought back filled out, but I’m not going to focus on that part. Ha.

If you want to snag this set for yourself, click on the picture below or head to my TPT store and search for Winter Measurement.

What are some of your favorite measurement activities? I’m always on the look out for some new ideas!