Young children are inherent measurers and this is reflected strongly in everyday language when they compare, order and match – I can swim right across the pool now; it’s too big for me to lift; it won’t fit in the box; my hand is bigger than your hand. Personal experiences, such as playing with toys, interactions with other children and conversations with parents all reinforce children’s early development of the concept of attributes that can be measured. Students need experiences that lead to an understanding of why measurement is necessary and helpful. They need to work with non-standard units and to create their own measuring instruments, and to discover for themselves the necessity of having standard units and the efficiency of having measuring instruments to count the units. Team Awesome has been exploring length through hands-on activities with these objectives in mind and will also play with the concepts of weight, area and capacity.
