Author: Mathew Needleman  Date Created: 7/20/2003 9:59:07 AM PST
Measurement: How much, how big, how long?
Grade/Level: 1
Students: 20 students. 10 boys. 10 girls. 13 ELL students. 1 student mild autism.
Subject Area(s): Mathematics
Concept(s): Measurement is a way of understanding the size of something compared to the size of something else. Non-standard units of measure are a valid way of understanding the size of an object.
State Academic Content Standard(s): CA- CCTC: Aligned CSTP's and TPE's • Standard : CSTP: Standard for Understanding and Organizing Subject Matter for Student Learning TPE: A. Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students CSTP Description: Teachers exhibit strong working knowledge of subject matter and student development. Teachers organize curriculum to facilitate students? understanding of the central themes, concepts, and skills in the subject area. Teachers interrelate ideas and information within and across curricular areas to extend students? understanding. Teachers use their knowledge of student development, subject matter, instructional resources and teaching strategies to make subject matter accessible to all students. • CSTP Key Element : Organizing curriculum to support student understanding of subject matter.  Question : use my knowledge of development to organize and sequence the curriculum to increase student understanding? CA- California K-12 Academic Content Standards • Subject : Mathematics • Grade : Grade One By the end of grade one, students understand and use the concept of ones and tens in the place value number system. Students add and subtract small numbers with ease. They measure with simple units and locate objects in space. They describe data and analyze and solve simple problems. • Area : Measurement and Geometry • Sub-Strand 1.0: Students use direct comparison and nonstandard units to describe the measurements of objects:  Standard 1.1: Compare the length, weight, and volume of two or more objects by using direct comparison or a nonstandard unit.
Objective(s): Given a non-standard unit of measure, students will be able to measure the length of an object using that unit with eighty percent accuracy.
Prerequisite Background Skills/ Knowledge: Students need to understand that measuring should be consistent i.e. to find out how long a desk is in terms of baseball cards, you need to use baseball cards that are the same size. This concept will be developed in the lesson.
Vocabulary/Language Skills: Length, width, and area. This will be taught for English Language Learners using hand signals to indicate what is to be measured as well as actual examples. Estimating: will be likened to a smart guess.
Materials: Non-standard units of measure: Baseball cards and replicas, Buttons, Teddy Bears Etc. A recording worksheet Everyday objects to be measured (already in classroom)
Classroom Management: Students will be lost unless the recording worksheet is designed very simply. If the recording worksheet is intuitively designed and instructions are clearly given, misbehavior will be minimized. As directions must be given in chunks, review the stop and put everything down signal so that students can be given additional instructions in the middle of the lesson.
Models of Instruction: Direct Instruction
Procedure
Open: In keeping with the unit theme of personal collections, present the children with some examples of your own collections of items and items that they may have brought in (baseball cards, teddy bears, buttons, etc...). As a review of more than/less than concepts, present two collections of items to students and ask which there are more of or less than. Explain that today we will be taking a look at not just the number of objects we have (how many) but the size of the objects (length).
Input: Explain the concept of length (the longest side of something) and model for students how we might measure a large teddy bear with paper clips. First, begin with an estimate an explain the concept of estimating, asking questions such as do you think this teddy bear is closer to 10 paper clips long or closer to 100 paper clips long? Take the class's guess and record it on the board in a format identical to the recording sheet.
Guided Practice: Pass out the recording sheet to students on the carpet and linking cubes. As a whole class, make an estimate of how long the recording sheet is. Then, use the linking cubes to measure the length of the recording sheet and record this in the first space.
Independent Practice: In groups of four, students will circulate around the room where stations are set up with an object to measure (computers, stuffed animals, books--objects big and small) and a non-standard unit of measurement (paper clips, baseball cards, buttons). Students will complete their recording sheets as they circulate around the room. Always making an estimate, then actually measuring. Encourage re-measuring for students who finish early to ensure accuracy.
Close: Back on the carpet, ask students to share which object there was the longest. Perhaps emphasize the distinction between length and number of objects by making a comparison to the review at the beginning of the lesson. Ask students why making an estimate is important. Ask for any other informal observations, such as which non-standard unit of measure was easiest/hardest to use.
Assessment/ Reflection
Assessment: Informal assessments will be made as teacher circulates to watch the groups measuring. Teacher checks to see that students are able to measure an object with a non-standard unit of measure with eighty percent accuracy. Teacher will check for common errors like not estimating, not making sure an answer makes sense, and overlapping the units of measure to get an inaccurate answer.
Reflection: Classroom management issue with my new class still prevent my lessons from succeeding to their fullest potential. However, because of the cooperative nature of the activity most students were able to catch on while working with their groups. However, the idea of rotating from station to station in under five minutes was too ambitious. Students were able to complete their measurement at only two stations but I believe this was still a valuable activity. I would put the success rate at around sixty percent. Students will definitely need follow up to achieve mastery. Some things to consider for next time. Overall, my students need some instruction on teamwork. Sharing materials was more of an issue in this lesson than measuring. I will need to explicitly teach group work to the students before our next cooperative group lesson. Also, I need objects that are two dimensional (for example, Lego figures). The three dimensional stuffed animals added an unwanted variable to measuring length and made it a little confusing sometimes. However, even if students sometimes measured the wrong way, they were still able to practice estimating and measuring. I think this was an effective way of teaching estimating because we first started by measuring one stuffed animal together and then used that as the basis for comparison with other stuffed animals.