In this unit students, working in groups of 2 to 4, carry out and report on a series of investigations involving decisions about how to measure something. The suggested investigations ask: What’s In a Newspaper?, Are You a Square?, How Far Do You Walk? and How Thick Is It?
Measuring skills:
Students will need to be proficient and accurate using rulers and tape measures. They will also need to understand how to combine several measurements appropriately to achieve a result. Relationships between kilometres, metres, centimetres and millimeters will be examined.
Calculations:
All four operations on measurements will be used in this unit. The calculations will involve: large numbers and decimals, conversion to fractions and the choice of appropriate levels of accuracy of measurement and of fraction conversion. Calculator use may also be included in the unit.
In this unit students, working in groups of 2 to 4, carry out and report on a series of investigations involving decisions about how to measure something. The four investigations suggested are:
What’s In a Newspaper?
Students calculate what fraction of a newspaper is devoted to news, sport, advertisements and other categories of information.
Are You a Square?
Students determine whether their height is equal to, greater or less than, the distance from end to end of their outstretched arms.
How Far Do You Walk?
Students work out approximately how far they walk in one year.
How Thick Is It?
Students decide how to measure a length that cannot be measured directly – for example the thickness of a wall of their classroom.
In each investigation the students follow the same sequence:
Large card for displaying results and methods.
Table for comparing strategies (Strategy copymaster)
Newspapers
Rulers
Tape measures
The sessions are described on the assumptions that students will complete a different investigation on each of the first four days, with discussion of all investigations on Friday. However it is much more likely that two or at most three investigations will occupy those four days, especially if they are asked to record and present their findings. You may prefer to select from the suggestions.
What is in a newspaper?
Are you a square?
How Far Do You Walk?
How Thick Is It?
Groups display or present orally the results of each investigation in turn. What were the findings? Were they fairly consistent with each other or not? What are the reasons for this? What unexpected difficulties did they find? How did they resolve them?
Alternately, you may prefer to reporting and discussion to take place at the end of each investigation.
Family and Whanau,
In mathematics this week we are carrying out an investigation on measurement. Your child has the task of figuring out how long a piece of spaghetti would be if all the spaghetti eaten in your house over a year was stretched out end to end in one long piece. They should record the way they worked out this problem in their book and be able to explain their strategy to you. Please write a comment about how you helped or about how well they did at explaining their thinking to you.
Printed from https://meaningfulmaths.nt.edu.au/mmws/nz/resource/how-can-you-measure at 8:44pm on the 26th February 2024