Comparing Our Heights

As we were finishing up out unit on the body, we had one last step in our project.  Students traced the outline of their bodies, and placed the organs they drew in the correct location of the body. 

Two of our common core math standards read as follows:

Measure lengths indirectly and by iterating length units.

CCSS.Math.Content.1.MD.A.1
Order three objects by length; compare the lengths of two objects indirectly by using a third object.

CCSS.Math.Content.1.MD.A.2
Express the length of an object as a whole number of length units, by laying multiple copies of a shorter object (the length unit) end to end; understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of same-size length units that span it with no gaps or overlaps.

I distributed snap cubes, my nonstandard unit of measurement.  However, the students wanted nothing to do with it.  They broke out the rulers and measuring tape! 

They measured the height of the body in feet and inches.  I wondered how their height compared with the height of their classmates. 

 

After I posed this question, they all wanted to be measured.  We recorded several heights.

 

Later, together on the rug, we used inequality statements to compare the heights.

CCSS.Math.Content.1.NBT.B.3
Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <.