So there’s one thing that many kids end up not knowing how to do. But it’s one of the most important measurement skills. 

I’m Christina Tondevold, The Recovering Traditionalist, and today I’m joined by my husband, Scotty, as we take a look at The #1 Thing To Teach Kids About Measurement: How to Read A Tape Measure, in our quest to build our math minds, so we can build the math minds of our students.

Watch the video or read the transcript below:

In this video I roped my husband into helping me.  As a general contractor who builds and remodels homes he has to read a tape measure daily and so do his workers.  

Before we get into it, we are talking about measuring tools that we use here in the United States which deal a lot with fractions that involve 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 and I know that in other countries, you are metric systems, so you don’t have to deal with those. But as we go through these ideas, I want you to think about how they relate to the measuring tools you have because what we find here in the United States is that kids end up leaving school, not being able to use and read those tools.

In this video we discuss 3 key points:

 #1 Reading a Tape Measure Builds Fraction Understanding

• It helps kids build an understanding of equivalence.  Scotty gives the example of some of the workers calling out a measurement of 4/16 and not knowing that’s ¼.
• One of the things I like about rulers, from the teacher perspective, is that it reminds us to focus on practical fractions.  Rulers use 1/2s, 1/4s, ⅛, 1/16, and 1/32nds.  Many textbooks will give kids work with fractions that have denominators that kids will never see in their actual lives.  When will we ever need to find an equivalent fraction to 13/17??

#2 We use measuring tools all the time in our real-lives 

• Measurement problems aren’t fake ‘real-world problems.’  Textbooks give kids problems  where someone buys 25 cantaloupes, that doesn’t happen in real-life. Measurement scenarios are things kids will actually encounter in their real life.
• Scotty reminds us that being able to use a tape measure is useful even if you aren’t in the construction industry.  You will use it to hang a TV or pictures on your wall, or to repair the drywall you messed up when you put the holes in the wrong spot the first few times you tried because you didn’t measure correctly.

#3 Don’t wait until you THINK kids are ready to use a tape measure

• Our standards in 1st grade have kids measuring lengths.  We aren’t having them use a ruler, but we are having kids put objects end-to-end in a linear fashion to develop the basics of measurement understandings.
• Scotty and I have helped our kids notice measurement situations before they were doing formal fraction work.  You can have kids measure to the nearest inch or even having conversations about ‘half a foot’ will lay a foundation for formal measurement work in the upper grades.

Everything that we talk about with building kids math minds, it’s not just about getting the kids to memorize.  Same is true with reading a tape measure.  Don’t focus on having them memorize what each one of those tick marks represents on the ruler. 

It’s about helping them build their understanding of measurement, fractions, making sense of what those tick marks actually mean, and realizing where that halfway point is between the inches, all of those kinds of things. Initially you have to build that fraction understanding, but over time, you just know which tick mark is 3/8 or a ½, but build the understanding first.

I hope that this video’s helped you build your math mind so you can build the math minds of your students.  Have a great day!

Pin This To Pinterest for Later