Planning GuideGrade 2
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Measurement

Strand: Shape and Space (Measurement)
Outcomes: 2, 3, 4, 5

Step 3: Plan for Instruction

Guiding Questions

  • What learning opportunities and experiences should I provide to promote learning of the outcomes and permit students to demonstrate their learning?
  • What teaching strategies and resources should I use?
  • How will I meet the diverse learning needs of my students?

A. Assessing Prior Knowledge and Skills

Before introducing new material, consider ways to assess and build on students’ knowledge and skills related to measurement. For example:

  1. Do the students recognize the various possible measuring attributes?
  2. Give students some pairs of objects to compare. Ask them to explain what they were comparing and how the two objects compare.

    You will need to have available a variety of materials for filling, covering and matching. Filling may require enough beans, rice, sand or foam chips to fill at least one of the boxes or containers. Matching lengths will require a number of nonstandard units such as linking cubes, plastic links, paperclips or other items of which you have an abundant supply and that are not too large a unit for measurement of the items to be measured. If you are measuring larger items, such as the width of a desk or door and the height of people, you will need larger units, such as decimetre rods from the base ten blocks, straws, Popsicle sticks or lengths of yarn and string. You will also need some items for covering areas such as tiles, decks of cards, photos or dominoes.

    For example, given several boxes, do students identify linear measurement possibilities such as the height of the boxes, the distance around the outside of the boxes (perimeter) and the width and length of the boxes? Do they only measure by matching length, width and height and verbalize in terms of which box is taller/shorter, longer/shorter or wider/narrower? The term "narrower" may not be in your students' everyday vocabulary. This is an opportunity to check that they know what the word means and encourage them to use it.

    Do students lift the boxes and use hand balancing to try to determine which is heavier and which is lighter? The boxes being compared need to have distinctly different weights.

    Do they also recognize that the boxes could be compared based upon the attribute of capacity, how much they will hold? Do they have suggestions as to what nonstandard units might be used to compare the capacities of the two boxes? The boxes should be different shapes, not ones that can be placed one inside the other and make comparison easy without any measurement.

    Do students also consider the attribute of area when comparing the boxes? They may only look at the bottom or lid of the box when considering the area, which is how much space it will take up on the counter; however, if the question is which box would require the most wrapping paper, the area to be considered would include all six sides of the box. 

    If students' knowledge of these measurement attributes seems weak, you may want to provide more opportunities for the students to strengthen their knowledge of those attributes even as you are setting out the learning activities for students to meet the Grade 2 objectives for measurement. It is likely that the students' knowledge of area and capacity are less developed than their knowledge of linear measure. This does not necessarily reflect on their Grade 1 learning experiences, but the fact that in their home and community environment they will have had more opportunities to use linear measures. They could possibly have had more opportunities to experiment with capacity than area, but their exposure to the language related to capacity has likely been limited to "more" and "less."

  3. If students need additional experiences with these measurement attributes, you can follow up with assessment based upon determining the ordering of three or more given objects, as in the Grade 1 curriculum.
  4. If a student appears to have difficulty with these tasks, consider further individual assessment, such as a structured interview, to determine the student’s level of skill and understanding.

Sample Structured Interview: Assessing Prior Knowledge and Skills  Word Document

B. Choosing Instructional Strategies

Consider the following general strategies for teaching:

  • Access prior knowledge on using measurement in the real world. What things do students know that are measured and why are they measured?
  • Use linear measure and mass (weight) to measure things that are familiar and of importance to students, such as body measurements and masses of items that are common in the classroom or in their play, such as erasers, pencils, crayons, Plasticine, balls, staplers and scissors.
  • Check for conservation of length and mass. Do students recognize that items rearranged, transformed or subdivided maintain the same measurement attributes?
  • Have the students estimate prior to comparing or measuring, as it enhances motivation and involvement. Plus it gives you as the teacher more information on what students have gained from past experiences. If they are not applying benchmarks to improve their new estimates, it gives you the opportunity to ask questions and remind students about previous experiences so that they begin to see the value in taking note of results and recalling these referents when making future estimates.
  • Encourage the students to measure the height, length, distance around or mass after each estimate so that they develop a better sense of these four measurement attributes and some benchmarks.
  • Make both direct and indirect comparisons; e.g., standing two students back-to-back to compare their heights and indirectly comparing the height of two students in different classes by using paper strips to compare them or by considering the counts of their heights in the same nonstandard units. Even more indirect is the logic involved in the comparing measurements, such as student A is the same height as student B and student B is the same height as student C, so can they deduce that student A is also the same height as student C?
  • Have the students compare their results and discuss reasons for any discrepancies.
  • Accept a range of estimates—within 10% to 20% of the actual measure is reasonable (Van de Walle 2001, p. 295).
  • Measure the length or mass with various nonstandard units, so students can develop an understanding of the inverse relationship between the size of the nonstandard unit and the numeric outcome, as well as improve their accuracy in making estimates.
  • Provide situations that encourage students to begin to see the need for standard units to measure, for example using hand spans or the length of one's foot to measure the same items or various sized washers as weights to measure masses and discuss the variations in results.

C. Choosing Learning Activities

Learning Activities are examples of activities that could be used to develop student understanding of the concepts identified in Step 1.

Teaching Linear Measurement
The Right Sized Download Activities  Word
Estimating Linear Measures Download Activities  Word
Two Ways to Measure Directly, How to Measure the Distance Around a Shape and Measurement Error Download Activities  Word
Changing Orientation Does Not Change Measurement Attributes Download Activities  Word
Practising Measurement with Single and Multiple Units Download Activities  Word
Measurement and All About Me Download Activities  Word
Relating the Size of Measurement Units to the Number of Units Download Activities  Word
Ordering (Seriating) Download Activities  Word
Crooked Paths Download Activities  Word
Making the Transition to Standard Linear Measurement Tools Download Activities  Word

Teaching Measurement of Mass
Becoming Acquainted with Mass Measurement Instruments Download Activities  Word
Selecting the Right Nonstandard Units Download Activities  Word
Estimating the Number of Nonstandard Units Download Activities  Word
Conservation of Mass Download Activities  Word
Ordering According to Mass/Weight, Ascending and Descending as Required Download Activities  Word
Relating the Number of Units to the Mass/Weight of the Unit Used Download Activities  Word