The Length of My Feet

This lesson focuses students’ attention on the attributes of length and develops their knowledge of and skill in using nonstandard units of measurement. It provides practice with and remediation of the measurable attributes of length.

The Area of Things ...

Students have opportunities to recognize and use the attributes of length and area using non-standard units.

Grouchy Lessons of Time

This lesson provides an introduction to and practice with the concept of time. The activities focus students’ attention on the attributes of time and enables students at varying levels to develop knowledge and skills in using time.

Block Pounds

Students explore the use of variables as they solve for the weights of objects using information presented in pictures. They model situations that involve adding and subtracting whole numbers, using objects, pictures, and symbols.

Tangram Puzzles

In this activity, students choose a picture and use all seven tangram pieces to fill in the outline. They describe and visualize what figures look like when they are transformed through rotations, reflections, or translations, and are put together or taken apart in different ways. This activity helps students to develop their spatial memory and spatial visualization skills, to recognize and apply transformations, and to become more precise in their use of vocabulary about space. Students use an internet-based tool to explore tangram puzzles.

Baby Weight

In this lesson, students work with data to complete an organized chart by doubling or halving numbers. Then, they compare data using vertical and horizontal bar graphs.

How Big is Your Heart?

This lesson emphasizes the connections between science and mathematics by using a performance, or authentic, assessment format. Students have the opportunity to explore applications involving their own heart. This lesson was adapted from the article, "Ideas: The Beat of Your Heart," by  Lisa M. Passarello and Francis (Skip) Fennell, which appeared in The Arithmetic Teacher Vol.39, No.6 (February, 1992) pp. 32-39.

Keeping in Balance

In this lesson for grades 1‑2, students balance pairs of like and unlike objects by changing distance from the fulcrum. Students use a crayon (as the fulcrum) and a ruler to represent the balance.

Finding the Balance

In this lesson for grades 6‑8, students participate in activities in which they focus on patterns and relations that can be developed from the exploration of balance, mass, length of the mass arm, and the position of the fulcrum. The focus of this lesson is the relationship between the length of the arm and the mass of the objects.