Non-Standard Measurement in First Grade

I may not have 20 years of experience in first grade [yet], but in my year and a half, I have found a few things to be true:

1.  First graders love construction paper.
2.  First graders love to trace.
3.  First graders love manipulatives.

Knowing these three things, I put together a super-simple and engaging lesson to introduce my students to the concept of measuring things using non-standard units.

First, I showed them a quick video by Teaching Without Frills to introduce this concept:

[Side Note: Check out that link above - it is a great YouTube channel with a ton of quick videos!]

Once we finished chatting about this video, I introduced them to our activity!  For this activity, you will need:

[Construction paper, centimeter cubes, unifix cubes, or other non-standard measurement units]

Your students will also need access to pencils and scissors.

First, my students traced one of their feet on the construction paper.  Some of them needed to buddy up because they had trouble, but they all made it work!  

Then, they cut out their "feet." :)

Then, they used what they learned in the  video to measure their foot in either base ten cubes or unifix cubes.  

Looking for ways to extend this simple activity?

• Have your students take the construction paper foot home, and find other units to measure it with.
• Have students measure the foot with both types of cubes and then compare.
• Have your students line their feet up from shortest to longest.  
• Show your students how to use "shorter, shortest, longer, longest" vocab to compare the lengths of their feet.

This lesson took about 3 minutes to prep, yet they had so much fun and were truly engaged - aren't those the BEST type of lessons?!  

I'd love to hear about the ways you teach your firsties this concept - what else would you do to extend this activity?

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3rd Grade Common Core Math - Binder Covers FREE Download

Fun colors, quirky fonts, and adorable clipart can make any boring binder way more exciting!  ... Did I really just say that?  Yes.   Moving on....

If you are a third grade Common Core teacher, this freebie is especially for you today.

These binder covers coordinate with my latest resource: 3rd Grade Math - Common Core Print & Go - 300 PAGE BUNDLE.  Don't have the resource?  No prob - you can still grab the freebie for your own files by clicking HERE!

Enjoy!

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Teaching Distributive Property Using an Area Model

Math can get boring if you get stuck in the 'worksheet' rut.  The worst thing during math (or any subject, really) is to look into the 'crowd' and see a bunch of blank stares on their lifeless faces.. you know what I'm talking about!!  B.O.R.E.D.

This week, I used a completely simple and effective method to teach my struggling third graders about the distributive property using an area model!

We all know that some of our learners retain info the best when they can manipulate things, hands-on.  First, I prepared these materials for our lesson:

one class set of grid paper copies

enough copies of the formula page for my students
to each complete four examples; there are 10 formulas per page

I also gave each student a blank piece of copy paper... blue happened to be what was on hand that day :)

To start the lesson, I modeled coloring in a rectangle with a highlighter on my own grid paper and asked them to recreate the same rectangle on their paper.  Then, we all cut out the rectangle and glued it onto our blue paper

After the first rectangle was glued, I passed out the copy of the formula and had students glue it underneath the rectangle.  We talked about what we already know about finding area (length times width) and wrote down the formula and the area for the first rectangle.

Next, I shaded in another rectangle with pencil that had the same height as the previous rectangle.  Once again, I asked the students to recreate this rectangle and cut it out.  We glued it onto our blue paper next to the yellow rectangle, and tried to make ONE shape out of the two rectangles.  Then, I used marker to trace around the whole rectangle.

We did four more examples together, and they were actually bummed out when I told them we were out of time!  My students even asked me if we could do this activity again the next day... I'll take it!

As homework, I gave them a practice page from my latest TPT resource: 3rd Grade Math - Common Core Print & Go - 300 PAGE BUNDLE.

As you can see, this practice page aligns perfectly with the activity students completed in class!

Interested in teaching your students about the area model using this hands-on method?  Click HERE to snag all of the printables you have seen in this post, including a freebie from my PRINT & GO Bundle on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Does anyone else have another effective way to teach this concept?  

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