LEARNING TO MEASURE IN A DIFFERENT WAY

Welcome again to a new post!

In this entry, I will be focused on how teachers can provide young learners opportunities to experiment and understand what measurement is and how they can use different ways of measuring without using the traditional formulas or calculations.

The first idea that came into my mind is making learners use their body in order to measure, so, a good way of encouraging them to learn and enhance their interest in mathematics, the development of practical activity could be very interesting and motivating. For this reason, I will explain the activity in order to introduce the longitude to students from the third cycle of Primary Education.

First of all, they will work in groups of three or four people, and each one of them will have a purpose, although all the learners will measure the same objects, for example, a table, a pencil, a chair, the blackboard, the door, the window, a book, etc, but with different instruments and using different strategies and techniques;

•   The group A will be the responsible of measuring by using their hands as handspans.
  
  
  
  
  
  
•       The group B will use their feet as an instrument of measuring.

•      The group C will use their arm, from the elbow to the hand.

•        The group D will use their thumbs as inch.

While they are measuring, they will have to take notes of all object, because when they have finished, they will do a debate in order to share their information. In this way, young learners will learn effectively that everything can be measured and they can use different methods in order to measure the same thing, although they have to take into account that not every single measurement will be the same.