Today began the ever tedious measurement unit. The one that is almost as cringeworthy to a fourth grader as fractions. We opened the unit this week by discussing length, both customary and metric. When planning this week I found myself incredibly bored...like I would rather watch paint dry than engage in any lesson I was planning, bored. So, I relied on my BFF, Google. (Yes, that's right, I'm best friends with a search engine). While sifting through a plethora of monotonous lessons, I stumbled upon something worth exploring. It was a 'Scavenger Hunt for Lengths' lesson from Discovery Education. After carefully reviewing the activity, it was obvious that it was perfectly suited for my kiddos and their learning styles.
So, today we explored length, through reasonableness and estimation, and measuring. The kiddos were put into groups and given a set of clues. They went on a scavenger hunt in the classroom, looking for items to measure that matched the set of clues. They explored reasonableness of measurement by estimating the length of objects, and then measuring for accuracy. The room was buzzing with math talk, and questions that were so beautiful I could have cried! The kiddos were learning through exploration. They completely took the wheel on their own learning today! It was amazing to see them reason through their misconceptions when their estimates were completely wrong.
The second part of this lesson really allowed them to apply their understandings, as well as work on meeting a few technology TEKS! The students used their Chromebooks and were sent on another scavenger hunt where they were asked to look for relative distances using maps. I was also able to pre-asses their ability to convert within a given measurement system. So, tomorrow when we begin conversions, I know who will need more assistance, and who will need extensions.
The learning that took place today was valuable, meaningful, and student-centered. This lesson sparked an interest in every student!
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