How long were the dinosaurs?

While I'm posting about my dinosaur unit, I might as well share this too!

In my previous post, I mentioned that I did a short dinosaur unit two summers ago with 3 and 4 year olds. At the time I was really trying to figure out good math activities to do that were fun (as it was the summer program) as well as educational. Here's what I came up with:

I decided that it may interest my students to see how long a dinosaur was. And what is every child's favorite dinosaur? A t-rex, of course! So, I researched how long a t-rex was (note: dinosaurs are not measured by their height because they walked hunched over: they are measured from head to tail) and discovered they were up to 40 feet long.

My classroom was not 40 feet long, so I decided to do my lesson out on the playground. I used a long extension cord and measured forty feet with my students (with a tape measure), stretching it out across the playground. Then I used some receipt paper (that came in a large roll) and used it to measure the heights of my students as well as myself. They loved being measured and then being able to hold the piece of paper that was the same size they were. We placed all of our paper heights on top of the extension cord one next to the other and found that all of our combined heights did not even come close to the length of the t-rex.

There were mixed reactions to this activity. My four year olds LOVED it. They were all really interested in dinosaurs and thought it was sooo cool that our heights didn't reach the end of the dinosaur height. My three year olds were not so thrilled. They were too distracted by the fact that we were on the playground, and they didn't really care about their height. So, I would definitely do this again with ages four and up. With younger students, the teacher mostly does all the work, but with older students, they can do the measuring and comparing. I would say this activity could go up to third or fourth grade and still keep the interests of students. If you do not have enough space to do a forty foot dinosaur, you can measure feet compared to a dinosaur foot instead.

Happy Measuring!

Graphs

I'm posting way more than I'm actually going to because it's vacation and because I have lots of old things I want to talk about! But generally there is no way I will post this much.

One thing I would like to implement in my classroom everyday is the use of graphs (even in preschool!). As a part of the morning routine, I want students enter the classroom, read or be told what the daily question is, and then mark their answer on whatever type of graph I am using that day. Let's say I am using a bar graph. You can buy a good bar graph here (graph) or you can make your own. I made a reusable bar graph two summers ago by drawing lines on a poster board, covering it with contact paper, and adding pieces of velcro so that students could stick a colored piece of paper (laminated and with velcro on the back) with their answer to the graph's question.

Here is an example: In a preschool class of 3 and 4 year olds, I made a graph titled "Would a dinosaur make a good pet?" to go along with our dinosaur unit. I velcro-ed the title of the graph to the top of my homemade graph and put the words "yes" in green and "no" in red on the x-axis (the bottom of the graph). Then students could choose either a green piece or a red piece to velcro to the graph to mark their opinion. When students had all put their vote on the graph, we talked about why they voted the way they did and which answer had the most and the least votes.

My plan is to have a different question every day. The question itself is not really important; what is important is that students are exposed to graphing. I will also do a variety of graphs, charts, and data collecting strategies. One thing I may do is to have children put a tally mark under their choice. Another option is to use legos by giving each student a lego and having them build towers based on their choices (sort of like a 3-D bar graph). Furthermore, I may have students make a paper chain to represent their answers to the question of the day. There are infinite possibilities!

Some people may question whether graphing is too complicated for preschoolers, but I would disagree. Students should not be taught about the x and y axis or the mechanics of making a graph, but they will understand how it basically works and what it means, especially if teachers use it in their every day routines. They will enjoy making and displaying their opinions and choices, and they will be excited to see the class results. I think a lot of times we underestimate what early childhood students can really do, but they can really surprise us!