PLAYFUL ACTIVITIES TO WORK THE CONCEPT OF MEASUREMENT IN CLASS

Sometimes, mathematics can be difficult to understand by students due to the complexity of it, and also this problematic can be presented in the concept of measurement. For this reason, I would like to expose three useful and playful activities that can deal with this situation.

1. MEASUREMENT LADDER

The concept of metric unit change is a problematic issue for students because they are not aware of what the process itself supposed. As a result of this, they are not able to identify when a multiplication or division is involved in the metric unit change process. MEASUREMENT LADDER is a playful technique that is oriented to solve this problematic issue. The simile of a ladder will be used to explain the jump from one unit of length (mass or capacity) to another. So, when we would go up from meters to kilometers we have to divide by 10 for each step we climb and on the other hand, when we would go down, we carry out the same process but multiplying by 10.

To make even more playful and significant the process of learning, the ladder of the school could be decorated; consequently students could feel engaged and motivated to the activity.

2. MEASURING THE WORLD

Once students have clarify the concept of changing of measure, we could use the ICTs to still working this concept. The teacher would select certain important buildings or monuments such as the Pyramid Giza, The Chinese Great Wall or The Empire State Building from New York. Students would have to search in Internet what are the height of theses buildings or monuments and the teacher would demand them to change into a specific measurement unit. 

Finally, the teacher could select some important buildings from the city where students live and to request them to compare how many times is bigger the specific building that they have just searched in Internet than the building from their city. This simple activity could make closer the concept of changing measurement unit and, at the same time, to show them that this concept has a real finallity in their world.

3. UNCONVENTIONAL MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

This last activity is oriented to youngest students, it is to say, students from the first cicle of Primary Education. The teacher would propose them different objects from the classroom and students have to measure them just using unconventional measuring instruments such as their fingers, giving steps, using school materials or whatever students would like to use.Once, students would find out how many times are the object of the class using the optional measuring instrument, the teacher would introduce them the concept of meter, decimeter and so on. Students would be able to undertand that every object can be measure and it is formed by specific measuring units.