Measure-Thon – Bringing Second Grade Measurement Lessons To Life

This multi-day math simulation was the highlight of my second graders’ school week. I was so amped when they made giddy little back-and-forth hand movements each morning when they saw “Measure-Thon” written on the schedule.

I am a huge fan of making math as interactive as possible and simulations are the perfect way to bring math to life. It has taken me a while to get my feet on the ground in second grade so this is the first simulation we have done all year!

Here’s the run-down on Measure-Thon.

Once my students settled in, we did our Warm-Up. During this portion of the simulation, volunteers demonstrated each event. We worked together as a class to accurately measure and record their results.

My mathletes caught on pretty quickly so we previewed two of the four events. For the other two, I simply read the instructions and had a student model the proper physical posture. The goal of our Warm Up was to solidify the expectations for accurate measuring and recording and give my mathletes a visual of what each event looks like.

Year One Pitfall:

During Warm Up, I came to realize many of my students struggled to count by 12s (when measuring using inches) and by 30s (when measuring using centimeters). Therefore, I decided to give them a quick quiz to get a better grasp on their mastery of this skill.

During the quiz, I gave them each a paper, set the timer for 1 minute and had them count by 12s as quickly as possible to get to the highest number possible. They then flipped their paper over and repeated the exercise while counting by 30. This helped me determine my Measure-Thon Teams. Each team had a skilled counter and a not-so-skilled counter to reduce the number of obstacles the teams might encounter when competing in the official Measure-Thon the next day.

Year Two Modification:

We used tape measures during this year’s Measure-Thon so the students could focus more on accurate measuring and less on adding 12’s and 30’s multiple times.

Year 1 Pitfall:

I anticipated it would take my mathletes between 10-15 minutes for each station. To my surprise, it took them thirty minutes to complete their first station…then I remembered…I teach second grade. After that, we had a short meeting about efficiency.

They finished two more stations within the next half hour – whew! We made the decision to complete the final station the next day since we were all experiencing measurement exhaustion.

Year 2 Modification:

The use of tape measures sped up the measuring process notably. All four stations were complete within 30-45 minutes.

DAY 3

My mathletes headed out the door just as energized as the day prior and completed their final station within 10 minutes (learning curve much).

When the graphs were complete, and the students headed out to lunch, I determined a winner for each event and filled out their certificates for the Awards Ceremony.