Go the distance with these fun measurement activities!

Posted by Remya Padmadas on March 02, 2016

How Far is Far?

If you thought your friend's house on the other side of town was far away, you have clearly not read this book. Climb the Magic Math Ladder to get from where you are to the top of Mount Everest, to Kashmir, to the moon, the Sun, and ultimately, to the edge of the Universe, which is very, very, VERY far away indeed. Ready, steady, go!

ACTIVITIES

Use Your Body

Resources

  • A Metre scale or strips of newspaper cut and taped together into meter long strips

What to do

  • Find something long to measure. It could be a boundary wall, the length of garden pathway - anything you like!

  • First ask the children to lie down head to toe, one after the other along the length of the item and find out how many ‘children’ it takes to measure the wall.

  • Next, ask them to measure the same distance with their metre long strips of newspaper.

  • What’s the difference in the measurement? Talk about how it’s important to have a standardised unit of measurement!

Globe Guesstimate!

Resources

  • Globe

  • Google

Ask the children to pick any two places on the globe and guesstimate how far apart they are. Then use Google to find the correct answer.

The closest guestimates win a prize!



1 Comment

Purvi Shah over 8 years ago

Nice!