Maxwell-week 14

This week, my student’s have focused primarily on measurement, as it is the main focus of their current math unit. Specifically, we have been focusing on area, perimeter, standard and non-standard units, and equivalencies.  My students begin their morning with fifteen minutes of independent reading followed by a math message and daily math activities before beginning their math lesson for the day.  Yesterday, their morning math message was a question dealing with measurement equivalencies.  The question was as follows: “Imani measured the classroom door and found that it was 36 inches, Jeremiah measured the same door and found that it was 3 feet, can they both be right?” The majority of my students answered the question “no”.  They were unable to recognize that 36 inches is equivalent to 3 feet.  The math message ended up dominating the majority of our math instruction time yesterday, as it was clear that many of the students still had serious misconceptions regarding measurement. 

Our instruction highlighted how one foot is equivalent to 12 inches, therefore two “foots” are equivalent to 24 inches, and 3 “foots” are equivalent to 36 inches.  This instruction seemed to help clear up my student’s misconceptions, however, I believe these misunderstandings were valuable tools.  It is easy to understand how a student would not understand how two different numbers could represent the same amount of something.  It is valuable to keep in mind these rather obvious issues students could struggle with.