Playing and Learning Begins at Home: Make your own Tape Measure!

Children need plenty of hands on experiences to develop an understanding of measurement and what it involves. Measuring is finding out 'how much' of a particular unit of measure something is. It involves an understanding of the attribute to be measured (in this circumstance length or height), knowledge of how to measure the attribute and a good understanding of number.

To introduce the concept of measurement using indirect (non standard) measure to Miss M (3yrs) I decided to start with length.

(other attributes of measurement are area, volume, mass and time)

Measuring with indirect units or non standard units of measure means measuring things with blocks, straws, hands and feet etc. As long as the units used to measure are the same size.

Direct measure or standard means measuring with direct units such as centimetres, inches etc, and using rulers and tape measures.

Making their own tape measure offers up such wonderful opportunities to practice the concept of measurement, comparing sizes and other math skills such as counting and ordering.

At a recent follow up Paediatrician appointment we discovered Miss M was

exactly 1metre tall!!

So we decided to make her tape measure to her height of 1metre. This added the extra bonus of her being able to use her tape measure to find objects that where taller, shorter and the same height as herself! You do not need to make your tape measure to any set length, it can be random.

Suitable Ages: 3yrs plus

Learning Opportunities

Practice and extend on understanding of measurement using indirect measure
Develop and extend on understanding of Length and height
Develop and extend on new vocabulary- length, height, measure, tall, taller, shorter, same
Develop and extend on math skills of counting and comparing

You will need

A long strip of card to desired length

paint for printing

object to be used as unit of measure on the tape measure

(hand or foot prints work well but other objects can be used also)

We used Miss M's hand prints as hey they were easily available and such a real life object. You could use foot prints or stamped shape prints such as stars etc.

When making the prints be careful to make sure each print starts where the one before finishes so there's even spaces and the 'measure' is more correct!

We had made our strip of card to 1metre, Miss M's height and we counted out her hand prints as we did them.

She is 9 (of her) hand prints tall!! Which means much more to her than 1metre!

We are in the midst of moving H man out of the nursery and doing up his room in preparation for the newest member of the family so there has been plenty of measuring furniture and spaces to see if it will fit.

Miss M got straight into measuring much of the furniture in our house.

She discovered many objects that were 'taller' or 'bigger' than her.

She was thrilled to find this chest of drawers was 'the same height' as her!