Ourselves

Objectives

To take measurements in non-standard units and record the information clearly.

To be able to compare the data and to begin to notice patterns.

Resources

Vocabulary

Today's Lesson

What to Get Ready

Explain to your student the rules of the Simon Says game. If you haven’t played this before, use the Simon Says video resource for a visual demonstration.

Play the game, pointing out body parts such as elbows, knees, toes, ears, eyes, nose.

Then, introduce the question: Do people with bigger feet need larger gloves? Encourage your student's ideas, saying that grown-up scientists often have times when they discuss lots of things before deciding what to do in their experiments.

New Learning

Say the question again and then say:

‘We are thinking like scientists, so we have thought about our question. Now we need to do some predicting. If you 'predict' something, it means you say something that you think will happen. Scientists predict things after they have thought hard and talked to each other about what is likely to happen. So, can you predict what the answer is going to be?’

Ask your student to go to one side of the room if they think the answer to the question is going to be 'yes' and to the opposite if they think it will be 'no'. Reassure them that it is okay to think for themselves. Ask your student to explain why they have chosen that side.

Explain that they will measure their own hands and feet, and the hands and feet of other people. Identify some volunteers who are happy to take part in the experiment and who will be measured in the next lesson. This should ideally be people with a range of different hand and feet sizes. Try to find another three people.

Explain that it will be important to compare the measurements of people’s hands and feet, and to see if we can spot patterns in the results.

Extra support

Support your student first in how to measure their own hands and feet. Agree together which part of the foot and hand they will measure. For example, is the hand going to be a stretched span from tip of thumb to tip of little finger? Draw these on plain paper so your student can see this during the activity.

Give your student the 📄 How to measure resource. This includes some tips for measuring and a place to record their measurements.

Encourage your student to measure in non-standard units (using, for example, plastic cubes or paper clips) or in centimetres, according to their measuring ability and experience.

Part-way through, explore early scientific ‘fair testing’ by measuring something incorrectly, for example, by placing the cubes wrongly, or by using large and small cubes at the same time. Ask your student to tell you what is wrong with what you are doing, and that it would give us incorrect data or information.

Extra Challenge

For an extra challenge, ask your student to measure to the nearest half-centimetre and then in millimetres. During the measuring, keep a close eye on their accuracy and their use of the ruler. For example, are they lining up the zero on the ruler with the edge of the foot or hand?

Citations

[1] www.youtube.com [2] www.youtube.com