Trace an outline of the teacher’s foot on construction paper and cut it out. Tell the students that this is the tool you will use to measure distances in the classroom. Have students identify four or five objects in the room and use the cutout to measure the distance from where you stand to those locations.
Record on a chart the location and the number of “feet” required for reaching them. Recording this information on a chart allows student to refer to it during the lesson. A Sample Foot Measurement is provided for your use. These could be used to create an overhead transparency to demonstrate how to place the foot end-to-end in order to measure longer distances.
Pair students and have them use multiple cutouts of your foot to measures the distances from their workplace to the identified objects. Using a lightweight poster board makes the foot “measurers” more durable. You should provide plenty of copies of the cutout of your foot or have students cut multiple copies so that they may practice measuring with multiple units before using only one
unit.
Have each student measure and record the distance from his or her “workspace or home base” to the objects you measured. (A management strategy could be to have pairs of students record for each other. While one student measures, the other might record.)
Distribute the Getting There With Teacher’s Foot Activity Sheet to students so they can draw pictures of the destination objects and to write the number of “feet” required to reach them.
Set a timer or tell the students how long they will have to complete the task. At the appointed time, have students gather with pairs seated beside each other. Have each set of students share the result of their measurement. Discuss
the differences in measures and how they happen.
