Curriculum Units – Level 3

What's the ME in Measurement All About?

Measurement is a process that students use everyday as they explore their home and school environment. They wonder about how far they can run, how long it will take, the distance from their house to school, who is the tallest in the class, how big is the playground, how many cups of juice are left in the container in the refrigerator, who has more ice cream on their ice cream cone, etc.

To answer these kinds of questions, students need to use the concepts and tools of measurement in order to collect the necessary data to make sense of their world. Measurement also helps students connect ideas in other areas of mathematics such as number sense and geometry.

In this unit, your child is engaged in the measurement process and connects it to his or her own personal world. As mathematicians, they measure objects in their classrooms, at home, and even their own bodies. They make estimates, develop personal benchmarks, and focus on accuracy and precision of measurement. They examine irregular shapes and develop strategies to find the area.

In earlier years, your child may have had experiences using nonstandard units of measure such as lima beans, straws, and paper clips to measure. This unit introduces standard units of measure and the need to select units appropriate to the attribute being measured. As your child explores the attributes of length, area, and volume, they are immersed in problem solving situations that require them to use a variety of other mathematical concepts and skills from number such as computation and fractions and from geometry such as the properties of shapes.