Wednesday, February 29, 2012

A Measuring Leap


You might think this an odd post to honor our last day of February which also happens to be a Leap Year day but bear with me.  If you've read any of my other math posts you know how much I've wrestled with the idea of letting go of just plain boring full page sheets of math problems.  I've come a long way and today, in a totally unprompted fashion, I decided to take a leap with my 8 year old's math lesson.  She's finished with her Math U See Gamma and I'm not ready for her to start the next in the series.  Instead, we have been skimming through our MCP Level C math workbook.  Yes, I do still have a couple of those ; )

Today's lesson was on comparing and understanding fluid measurements:


She had asked early in the morning if she could make some rice pudding later in the day, but when I saw her math page ... Well, in honor of our Leap Year, I took a LEAP and set out the tools:


The ingredients:


And had a lesson on comparing and measuring fluids, HANDS ON!!! ; D


I'd say today was definitely a manipulatives living math experience.  Hope you've enjoyed your extra day this year!

3 comments:

Eva said...

Great math lesson, we will do something similar soon also! I had a girl in my class in elementary school (grade 1-4) whose birthday was today. We others thought it was very strange to have a birthday one year, but not the next or the next or the next; too hard to understand at this age.

Dorie said...

Great hands on lesson! And now, I'm thinking about yummy rice pudding. As a child it was the only homemade pudding I liked that my mom made (definitely oh so much better than the dreaded tapioca, lol).

Jenny said...

Eva, you're right about explaining leap year to little ones. I think they understood, but couldn't be sure ; )

Dorie, there was none left after snack time. Oh yes, my kids prefer the rice over tapioca too.