Description

What our Inches, Feet, and Yards lesson plan includes

Lesson Objectives and Overview: Inches, Feet, and Yards further develops measuring skills as students identify, measure and compare the length of objects using inches, feet, and yards, including half and quarter inches. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to identify, measure and compare the length of objects using inches, feet, and yards, including half and quarter inches. This lesson is for students in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade.

Classroom Procedure

Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.

Options for Lesson

Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional adjustment to the lesson activity is to change the winning lengths or number of turns the students use for the game. You can also use additional lengths for the activity. You could have your students exchange activity scoresheets with another pair of students to check calculation of conversions.  Finally, you can assign items in the classroom for your students to measure, making a list with their lengths and widths.

Teacher Notes

The teacher notes page includes a paragraph with additional guidelines and things to think about as you begin to plan your lesson. This page also includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.

INCHES, FEET, AND YARDS  LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES

Inches, Feet, and Yards

The Inches, Feet, and Yards lesson plan includes two content pages. When we ask the questions How long? How tall? and How far?, we’re asking about length, height, and distance. We measure all of these using inches, feet, yards, or miles.

Inches are the smallest unit of length. 12 inches is equal to a foot. Three feet is equal to a yard. Finally, 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards is equal to one mile.

The word length usually refers to horizontal measurement, while the word height usually refers to vertical distance (such as how tall someone is). The word distance usually refers to how far something has moved, like when driving, jogging, biking, or flying.

When you’re measuring length, height, or distance, it’s good to keep a few important conversions in mind: 12 inches = 1 foot, 3 feet = 1 yard, 5,280 feet = 1 mile, and 1,760 yards = 1 mile.

The lesson includes a helpful chart for converting between inches, feet, yards, and miles. To change from inches to feet, divide by 12; to change from feet to inches, multiply by 12. To change from feet to yards, divide by 3; to change from yards to feet, multiply by 3. Finally, to change from feet to miles, divide by 5,280; to change from miles to feet, multiply by 5,280.

Sometimes, when you will convert from one unit to another you will have a remainder. This extra length, height, or distance will be inches or feet.

You can use tools like rulers, tape measures, odometers, and more to measure. The tool you use depends on what you need to measure. Standard rulers and tape measures show fractions of inches, like fourths, eighths, and sixteenths, which are helpful when you need a precise measurement.

Most rulers are 12 inches long, while yard sticks are 36 inches (or 3 feet) long. Tape measures can be up to 25 or even 50 feet long! A car odometer measures distance in miles.

Always remember that inches are the smallest unit of measurement, followed by feet, then yards, then miles. It’s easy to convert between inches, feet, yards, and miles. All you need to do is multiply or divide! And remember to use quarters and half inches on a ruler when you need an exact measurement.

INCHES, FEET, AND YARDS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS

The Inches, Feet, and Yards lesson plan includes three worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, and a homework assignment. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.

ADDING LENGTHS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET

Students will work with a partner to complete the activity worksheet. Each pair will first cut out each of the numbers/units on the worksheet. They will then fold them and place them in a container. Both students will take turns randomly picking a length from the container, recording each weight chosen on the provided chart. As they go, they will add up the total length that each partner has drawn. The first person who picks lengths totaling 4 miles or the person who has picked the longest total distance after 20 turns wins!

RULER PRACTICE WORKSHEET

The practice worksheet asks students to use a ruler to measure each line on the worksheet and then answer questions about their measurements.

INCHES, FEET, AND YARDS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

For the homework assignment, students will first answer ten conversion and measurement questions. They will also convert between inches, feet, yards, and miles.

Worksheet Answer Keys

This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the homework assignment. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.