measurement Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Ruler Game- Measuring in Farm Units

October 2, 2014 By Deirdre

Kids really seem to enjoy using rulers, but it can be hard for them to understand how to read them the units on them. I created some ruler game set of activities using farm unit rulers. (Measuring-in-Farm-Units.) The rulers feature various things you can find on a farm. There are pumpkins, crows, scarecrows, and so much more.

The farm unit rulers measure objects in various units. The smallest number of units is one and the largest is six. Before you start measuring objects, you will want to talk about a few things how the rulers are set up and what is displayed on them.

After printing out our farm unit rulers, we gathered fall themed objects to measure. We ended up finding a cardboard tree (We made for a thankfulness project.), decorative pumpkins, artificial leaves, and a fake corn cob ( I purchase for corn painting.). You could easily gather objects from outside to measure.

Before you select a ruler game you will what to review the question below:

Before Ruler Games Questions

What makes the difference between the pictures on the pumpkin ruler and the crow ruler? ( The size of the picture.)
Will object probably be more pumpkins or more scarecrows long? Why?
How do you line up a ruler with the object you are measuring? (It depends on the ruler. Some start measuring units at their end and some start a few centimeters in. Knowing where to start measuring is important.

Ruler Games

Select An Object

In this ruler game children can select an object to measure and a farm unit ruler to measure with. You can talk about how many units it is long. Children can write down the number of units an object is on a piece of paper. Actually they can write the object’s name and the number of units or they can draw the object and the units displayed on the farm unit ruler they are using.

Compare Objects

Children can select to objects that they think are same length in this ruler game. They can they measure their length using farm unit ruler to see if they are right.

Combination of Objects

What combination of objects can be lined up equal the length of their selected farm unit ruler? My son came up with this ruler game and I think it is a great way to think about how objects of various lengths can work together. There is a lot of problem solving that goes into this ruler game.

Here are some other farm themed activities that have been share on this blog:

Five Little Crows Games, Songs and Craft

Paper Bag Scarecrow

Sight Word Scarecrow Game (Printable)

More fall themed activities can be found on my Pinterest boards.

Math for Kids- Measuring Really, Really, Big Dinosaurs

August 2, 2013 By Deirdre

The Really, Really, Rreally Big Dinosaurby Richard Byrne is such a wonderful book. It is about a little dinosaur who has in his possession a jar of jelly beans that another bigger dinosaur wants. Actually he doesn’t want it, he demands it. He won’t settle for one jelly bean. No, he wants them all.

Math for Kids- Measuring

The little dinosaur tries to point out that they are not his beans. The bigger dinosaur doesn’t want to hear about them belonging to a friend. He struts around touting his strength and power.

In the end the little dinosaur draws him close enough to his friend’s mouth that the bigger dinosaur for the much bigger friend to clamp his teeth down on him. Thankfully the bigger friend is a herbivore who loves jelly beans.

In the end they all agree to share and the not be greedy. I bet he stop being a bully too.

What did we do to explore the book?

We did two math for kids measurement activities. One used non- standard measurement tools and the other used a ruler.

Non-Standard Measurement Tools

We measured three dinosaurs I created to resemble the big “greedy” dinosaur. Wooden cubes were used to measure each of the dinosaurs. The blue dinosaur is really a half a block shorter than we measured him, but we didn’t have half a block. I told my son we had to go up to the next number rather than go down to the number that would be a little short.

When we had measured the each dinosaur from the foot near its tail to the tip of its horn, we counted how many squares tall each dinosaur was.

Standard Measurement

A standard ruler was used to measure the dinosaurs. We used the inch side of the ruler rather than the metric side. It was much easier to measure using the ruler. The ruler had markings between the inches that allowed us to measure the dinosaur to the 1/2 and 1/4 inch.

We had an interesting discussion about non-standard and standard measurement. It was decided that the standard measurement was much more accurate. If we are measuring something and we want to know its exact measurement we will need to use a ruler.

Here are some more math for kids activities:

LEGO Fraction Games

Free Printable Interactive Math Sheet for Kids

Measuring in Farm Units

You will find more math for kids activities on my Early Learning Math board on Pinterest.

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Disclaimer: The book featured in this post was sent to me by Tiger Tale Books. This post contains affiliate links.

Valentine’s Day Sensory Bin for Kids

February 11, 2013 By Deirdre

A Valentine’s Day sensory bin is a great time to explore and play with symbols of the holiday as well as fun red objects. I recently share the bin above with JDaniel and he had a great time exploring, learning with and, playing with its contents.

What did I put in it?

Valentine’s Day themed stencil
Heart shaped cookie cutters
Heart shaped doilies
Heart shaped sunglasses
Red funnels
Red and pink buttons
Ribbon
Heart shaped Straw
Heart shaped skewers
Red beans
Dice with hearts on them
Pink Spoon

While children just love to explore and create their own activities with sensory bins, I like to guide JDaniel just a little bit. After he had checked everything out and played with it for awhile, I suggested we try the activities below.

Sunglass Weaving

He simply wove a couple of strand of ribbon through the slats in the sunglasses. It was a great small motor skill and in took some concentration to do. He couldn’t see through them when he was done, but it was a fun activity.

Estimating Beans

How many beans did JDaniel think would fit into each cookie cutter? Did the same number of beans fill the large cookie cutter as they did the small one? In this case the large one did not get filled up by the same number of beans. It didn’t even fill one layer of beans.

Heart Skewer Shuffleboard

The heart shaped skewers made perfect shuffle board sticks. I had JDaniel test out whether the bean or the button made it farther when it was shuffled across the kitchen table. I think he added a little more force behind the that he wanted to win. He had picked the bean. Either way it was a fun activity.

Straw Blowing Activity

JDaniel also worked on blowing a button and a bean across the table with a straw. The skewers were much easier to use to get the bean and button moving. It took a lot of blowing to get the button across the table.

Funneling Buttons

Which buttons could be sent through the small funnel? Which ones went through the larger one? Really on the smallest buttons made it through the funnels. A few of the buttons got struck and we had to use the skewer to pop them back up through the top.

Slinky Measurements

JDaniel has the most fun with this plastic heart shaped slinky. He loved trying to get it to flop and and spring back up. I had him place it on the end of the sensory bin and count how many hearts across the bin was. That got him thinking about other things he could measure the length of. He ended up measuring chair, tables and even his bear. They were accurate measurements due to the fact that the slinky had to be stretched out to measure the length of some things, but it was great counting practice.

As I mentioned a sensory bin is mostly for exploring, but I did want to share with you six activities we did with the contents of this bin.