My sixth grade students have been working on their ruler skills since September. This week's lesson included converting customary measures (inches to feet, yards, miles and back; fluid ounces to cups, pints, quarts, gallons and back; ounces to pounds and tons).
Yesterday, I went around the room and measured twelve items to the nearest sixteenth of an inch.
Today I gave them about fifteen minutes to work alone or in groups to try to identify the items.
It was a hard task, but it had them talking about those little marks on the ruler and how they could determine if it was an eighth or a quarter inch.
I believe almost everyone can finally use a ruler. This is a huge improvement over my experience at a local Home Depot. I asked for a window shade to be cut to 36 3/8 of an inch. I finally had to show the employee where it was on the ruler. *sigh*
Image Citation:
"Ruler." Auntie P's photostream. 2005 Feb 5. 2008 Apr 23.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/4310240_847f062ad5.jpg?v=0
Glad to hear the students can use rulers. I've seen some college students unable to do metric conversions.
ReplyDeleteSigh, I miss feet/inches, quarts/pints and cups! From one Canadian who just hasn't 'gone metric' after 30 odd years!
ReplyDeleteCharlie:
ReplyDeleteI can't promise that the ability to use the measurements will "stick", but it's promising to see their growth in this area.
Bookminder:
We went to Ireland a few years ago and they're still getting used to metric. I thought the US was the only country with a population still struggling with the variety of measures.