MEASURING POPSICLES!

Teach your students the early concepts of measuring with a ruler and
comparing lengths with this hands-on lesson. Students use popsicle sticks
to measure magazine cutouts using comparative adjectives such as big,
bigger, and biggest.

Learning Objectives
Students will be able to compare lengths and arrange objects by size.

Materials and Preparation

5” popsicle sticks, 4 per student
Markers
Labeling and Using Popsicle Sticks worksheet
Old magazines, 1 per student
Glue sticks
Scissors
What’s My Length? worksheet
Small object for tossing, like a ball, teddy bear, or hacky sack

Key Terms:
Adjective, length

Lesson
Introduction (5 minutes)
Begin by asking students to gather around you in a circle.
Pick a student to come to the middle of the circle and toss the throwing
object towards another student sitting in the circle.
Tell the student that was picked that they must find someone that is taller
than the person standing in the middle.
When the student chooses someone, have that new person stand next to
the person in the middle and have the students decide if they are in fact
taller by giving you a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
Continue the game by tossing the object to another student and changing
the series of questions while making sure that they are all related to
length using the words longer, shorter, smaller, bigger, taller, and
shorter.

Explicit Instruction/Teacher Modeling (10 minutes)

Tell students that you just used adjectives to compare length. Write
"adjective" and "length" on the board. Ask students to turn to their
partners and discuss the meaning of the two words. After a whole group
discussion, define the word adjective as a word that is used to describe a
person, place, or thing.
Define the word length as the measure of an object from one end to the
other end or how long something is. Ask students if they can think of the
words that were used in the game to describe the length of everyone’s
hair, feet, or height. Answers should be along the lines of: bigger, taller,
shortest, and so on.

Begin to underline the suffixes –er and –est under each of the
corresponding words. Inform students that whenever those suffixes are
attached to an adjective there arecomparisons involved, and in this case
they were comparing length.

Guided Practice/Interactive Modeling (15 minutes)

Issue a marker and popsicle sticks to each student.
Tell them that today they are going to use the popsicle sticks and
adjectives to measure and compare lengths. Have students label their
popsicle sticks according to the images on the Labeling and Using Popsicle
Sticks worksheet. Demonstrate how to use the popsicle sticks to measure
and compare lengths and have the students practice by measuring things
from their crayon boxes or desk.

Independent Working Time (30 minutes)

Provide each student with a magazine and a copy of the What’s My
Length? worksheet and monitor as they use their popsicle sticks to
measure and compare objects within the magazine to complete the
worksheet.

Extend
Differentiation
Enrichment: Challenge above level students by providing them with
rulers after they’ve completed their worksheets and having them measure
the objects lengths in inches.
Support: You can help below level students by providing them with solid
objects that they can touch and measure.

Review
Assessment (5 minutes)
Grade the What’s My Length? worksheet to evaluate your students'
understanding.

Review and Closing (5 minutes)

Have students turn to their nearest partner and answer the following 2
questions:
What does the word "length" mean?
Name an adjective that you used today.