DIY Homeschooler

Young learners can greatly benefit by having many opportunities to measure things: to learn how heavy something is, or how much liquid there is, or how far something is. It is very easy to provide opportunities for measuring length and distance.

Here are ideas for exploring measuring length and distance — in a natural way. The key is that you do not need to use pencil and paper to learn about measurement.

Table of Contents

• Units of Measure
• Specific Units of Measure
• The Language of Measurement
• Converting Units of Length
• Measurement Opportunities
• Length vs. Width
• Make Comparisons
• Order Objects by Length
• Putting it All Together

Units of Measure

Of course, the first thing to do is explore the various units of measurement.

It is important for your child to realize that you can easily measure your pencil with paper clips or decide how many paper clips long your pencil is.

Or use toothpicks as a nonstandard measure to determine how long something is.

Specific Units of Measure

When he has a grasp on how measuring works, you can teach him units such as inches, and try the same experiment: How many inches long is your pencil?

The Language of Measurement

While working on things that are close and can be handled, explore how far away something is — say Grandma’s house. Then he can easily see that Grandma’s house is many, many inches away.

• Length — Distance Worksheet

Converting Units of Length

At this point it is easy to explain why we have feet which are 12 inches, and yards which are 3 feet, and miles which are 1760 yards — so that we can more easily measure longer distances.

Older children can begin to learn unit equivalents (and abbreviations for units):

• 1 foot (ft.) = 12 inches (in.)
• 1 yard (yd.) = 3 feet (ft.)

When he has drawn a line that is 12 inches long, you can show him that he has drawn a foot!

(Introduce the metric system by simply turning the ruler around and noticing how many centimeters something is.)

• Conversion Chart

Measurement Opportunities

Provide many opportunities to measure things, such as:

• How wide, long, and deep is the baking pan you are using?
• How far do we drive to a certain destination?
• How long is that leaf?
• How long is your longest finger?
• Find out what the longest edge of your favorite book is.

Length vs. Width

Talk about length (the longer side) and width (the shorter side).

• Length, Width, Height, Depth

Make Comparisons

Make comparisons: Which is longer, the knife or the spoon?

• Length and Height

Order Objects by Length

Place objects in order by length.

We used snap cubes as an easy and fun way to do this (see resources below). He can put together a certain number of cubes and measure the length.

• Order Objects by Length

Putting it All Together

• Make a snap cube train about 4 inches long.
• Have your child find an object that is about the same length as a train of blocks you create.
• Once your child is familiar with a ruler, ask him to draw a line that is a certain number of inches long: Draw a line that is 3 inches long.
• Have your child measure each member in the family.
• Plot the height (length on end, if you will) of each family member on a wall from shortest to tallest.

More about measurement from The Book of Knowledge:

One of the most important measurements is length. We measure length when we find out the distance between two points. This may be very small, as when we measure a half-inch margin on a notebook page. It may be great, as when we calculate the distance of the earth from a sister planet. The inch is a unit of length; so is the yard; so is the mile. Length is sometimes called linear measure.

“How Things Are Measured”

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Additional Resources

MathLink Cubes
The type of snap cubes we used. Very helpful (and fun)!

8 Ways to Supplement Your Math Program
You’ll find Family Math and a few other favorites when you find yourself searching for real-life activities!