I love stealing....

I love stealing ideas from other blogs!  It has totally changed teaching for me, and makes everyday sort of new adventure. I found this super cute idea on Amy Lemons' blog and filed it away in my brain - which can be a risky practice. But this time I remembered, and even better than that,  I remembered while we were actually teaching the subject matter!   SCORE!

I loved her idea of Measurement Olympics.   I have a big ol' bag of pom pom balls,  so it was a cinch.   We went outside with rulers,  a yardstick and a tape measure.   I didn't anticipate how WINDY it would be,  so we had a some interesting results.    First we kicked the pom. 

Then we measured the distance each person kicked the pom.   The kids had to determine what the best tool to use would be,  and which unit of measure.   They had some good discussions about that.

 Then we tossed the pom - the odd numbered kids vs. the even.   Then we measured again and had tie breakers.

We decided that it was too windy to do the next event outside (plus we have evil fire ants all over the place and I didn't even want to think about the bites they would get with this activity).   We went into the hallway and had our last contest.   They had to blow the pom as far as they could with one blow. 

 

 Then,  they measured again.   They decided to use rulers inside.   Then one of my little smarties figured out that our floor tiles are exactly one foot long.  She explained that they could just count the tiles and measure the extra inches in the tile the pom landed.   I love them. 

Super fun and super successful!  Objective met without a single complaint.  Thank you Amy!