Lesson Plan : How Big is A Foot?

Goals/Objectives:
Students will understand why we need standardized units of measurement
We will create a standard unit for our length to use in our classroom

Standards :

2.4 K.MP Use mathematical processes when measuring; representing, organizing, and
understanding data.

-Engage in activities that include measuring, representing, organizing, and understanding data.

When prompted, communicate thinking while engaged in activities that include

measuring, representing, organizing, and understanding data.

Materials and Preparation:

How Big is a Foot? by Rolf Myller

Paper, markers put under book cart
Can of popsicle sticks with students names

Classroom arrangement and management

Students will be on our calendar rug for our read aloud and demonstration

Plan:

The Hook (5-10 minutes) : Investigative Question

I will tell students I want to know how big our rug is

I will ask a couple students to walk around the calendar rug counting out loud and tell me how
many steps it took

(the rest of the class will count with them so they remain engaged )

after they give their answer I will walk around the rug myself (with my grown-up sized feet) and
feign ignorance and say I think you counted wrong its ______ 20 steps etc?

I anticipate students I will call out that my feet are bigger

I will reply huh what should we do? and take a couple responses
The Body (10-20 minutes)
I will read aloud how Big is a Foot, with animated voices and intonation I plan to give minimal
introduction to the text as I want our exploration to feel organic and capture the students
interest.

I might say Lets take a break I have story for math today

I will get my students mentally prepared to read by telling them to strap on their thinking caps a
phrase I use to begin lessons if they are too excited

After reading the story(which is about a king deciding the kings foot is a standard unit of
measure) I will ask the students again what we should do to find out how big the rug is

I hope they will come to the conclusion we need to pick one persons foot and outline it like the
story , if not I will return to the text and wonder if the book can give us any ideas

Closure: (1-2 minutes)

I will let students choose (one teacher or classmate ) to outline their foot with a pencil we will
call this ______s foot

I anticipate students may all want to be chosen so I will have popsicle sticks with their names on
it so the process is fair

I will close the lesson by saying this is now our class unit and we will use it to measure our
classroom so we get the same answers

Anticipating Students Responses :

I anticipate students may all want to be chosen so I will have popsicle sticks with their names on
it so the process is fair

I anticipate students will

I anticipate students may need further scaffolding as we problem solve how to measure the rug
so i will return to the text

I anticipate some of my more advanced students may suggest we use a ruler or another
conventional measurement tool
I can respond how? to assess how well they understand conventional measurement
due to time constraints I may just say thats something we could try later
Assessment of Goals:

Students discuss in a group and successfully problem solve with the aid of the text and suggest
we use one persons steps

Accommodations:
I will seat my student with attention span problems directly in front of me and have his weighted
blanket ready should he have difficulty sitting through the read aloud

I will have my student who is a ESL learner seated near the front to see all the pictures in the
text for context clues and will walk through the book one on one with him again the next day
before we begin the activity