How big is a foot?

Last week we had fun learning about measurement. We read the book, “How Big Is A Foot?” by Rolf Myller.  The story is about a King who wants to give the Queen a bed for her birthday. Because beds at that time had not yet been invented, he wanted to have one crafted for her. His problem began when he realized that no one knew exactly how big a bed should be, prompting him to figure out what size the bed ought to be. He finally figured it out and used his own foot to measure the Queen. He then asked the carpenter to make a bed to that size. But when the carpenter measured using his own feet, the bed turned out too small. After much discussion of shared ideas for why the bed was too small we finally concluded that it happened because the King’s foot size and the carpenter’s foot size were different.

After the story, the Kindergarteners were introduced to the standard measuring tool, a ruler. They were then grouped in pairs and worked cooperatively to measure each other’s feet.   We will continue to study measurement in the coming week.  Within the context of this study we will introduce the concept of fractions.