Measurement Fun and a FREEBIE!

Thanks to so many AMAZING teachers and bloggers out there who shared their "Measurement" ideas, I was actually excited and motivated to go back to work last week, haha!  Here are some activities my kiddos completed in order to enhance their understanding of "Measurement."

This was a Pinterest-inspired idea.  (That's my hand!)  After I made a few clicks of the mouse, I realized this idea came from Mrs. Larremore at Chalk Talk.  If you want to check out her awesome post about "Measurement," click HERE!

We read the book "Actual Size" by Steve Jenkins.  The kids loved this book because it shows the actual sizes of some animals' body parts.  They got a kick out of comparing the sizes of their own body parts to the book.  (This was an introductary lesson, by the way, to get my kiddos to see and compare various sizes of things.)

Other than getting your hands on the book, you will need paint, paper plates, construction paper, and a sink to wash the students' hands!

Aren't they so cute!?  In the end, I asked the students, "So whose hand was bigger?  Yours?  Or the gorilla's hand?"  Thank goodness they responded with an unanimous "The gorilla's hand!"

This next idea came from The Mailbox.  I subscribe to their daily tips and ideas via e-mail (it is easy to sign up for those, if you're interested).  I also found this same idea on the Oriental Trading website.

So the kids make these adorable snowman sticks in order to measure the snow.  I went to our local hardware / paint store and they donated 20 paint stir sticks to my classroom.  YAY! 

I purchased some white spray paint and my hubby was sweet enough to paint them for me.  By the way, this one can was enough to do 2 coats on one side.  I highly recommend painting on the side that does not have writing on it, otherwise you'll need more paint.

All my kiddos had to do was add the hat, scarf, eyes, nose, and mouth...and they were done!

You'll notice I decided to leave off the stick arms.  I fear they will break off anyway when it is time to measure.  I also left off the numbers.  Since my Kinders learn non-standard measurement, I did not see the point in adding inches.  We are going to just mark numbers, like "1" for first snowfall, "2" for second snowfall, etc.  In the end, we can compare the snowfalls just as easily that way.

Now we wait for the snow!

Update:  We were able to measure the snow on Friday... yay!  The kids loved it!

My kiddos also measured with big and small marshmallows.  Oh...my...goodness!  They loved this activity!  After we were done, we went down to the teachers' lounge and drank hot cocoa with marshmallows.  :)

The recording sheets that we used came from two great teacher bloggers who love to share.  Click on their blog names to visit their blogs and grab these freebies!  The first one was from Lauren Blackmon at The Weekly Hive.  The second one was from Kelli Bollman at Castles and Crayons.  These are both awesome blogs, so take time to explore!

So for this coming week, I have more fun activities planned!  We will learn about measuring and comparing by height, which leads me to your FREEBIE!  My students are going to use snowflakes (I bought some nice ones at a local teacher store, but you could just as easily make some) to measure their heights and then compare their own height with others by using this recording sheet.  Visit my TPT store by clicking HERE to grab the recording sheet.

Update:  Here is a photo of the snowflakes we used to measure our height.  I actually do NOT recommend using snowflakes this big because so many of the kids had the same numbers.  If you use smaller snowflakes, your class with have a wider variety of data / numbers to work with when they are comparing with friends.  I hope that makes sense.

I hope to post again next weekend about the "Measurement" activities we are going to do this week, so check back later!  Thanks for stopping by!  :)