How long is an inch? (an introduction to linear measurement)

Looking for an introduction to linear measurement? Try this simple activity at home or in the classroom.

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Today I introduced my Four to linear measurement.  His sister (5) is familiar with the concept from kindergarten, but I found an activity that would challenge them both.

First I got out a ruler and asked my Four,

“Do you know what this is?”

“A ruler.”

“What number is at the end of it?”

“12.”

“Do you know what each of these little marks are called?”

“Lines.”

“Those are called inches.  When something is this long, we call it an inch.  Today we’re going to go on a hunt for things that are the same size as an inch.”

“Like a speck of dust?”  (This is how he refers to things that are very tiny – smaller than a speck of dust!)

“Well, we’ll try to find things that we can actually pick up.  Let’s get out the box of color tiles.  Each of those is one inch long. “

Here’s my little girl’s hand modeling a color tile.  These are square inch tiles useful for many things — sorting, counting, measuring, and more. Of course you c0uld use anything that is one inch long as a measuring tool.  We each took a color tile and marched to the playroom, where we began our search for items that were just about an inch in length.

This toy mouse  was about one inch long.

My daughter drew a picture of the mouse, I labeled it, and we glued it to a paper labeled “One inch long.”

Here are the other things we found. The kids took turns drawing the pictures.  After we finished this, I told them it was time to hunt for things that were shorter than an inch.  They weren’t sure where to begin until I suggested looking in the pantry.  Suddenly the game became a lot more fun!

A shelled peanut is shorter than an inch.

Here are the results of our “shorter than an inch” search.  After that we had only to find items that were longer than an inch, which did not require using the color tile at all.

Of course we could have gone on forever with this one, but my Two and One were waking up from their naps.  It was time to bring our measuring adventure to an end.

The kids learned a lot from this simple and interesting activity that required almost no prep work from me.

For many more math activities, click on the image below! 

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