My Area Zoo! (And a GIVEAWAY Reminder!!)

For the past few weeks, we've been working on our measurement unit.  It's always fun in 2nd grade, because we work with "non-standard" units of measurement!  So yes, things like paperclips, notecards, feet, Cheez-its, jellybeans...you get my drift!

The kiddos always catch on to length VERY quickly, and I will admit that sometimes we do have more time alotted than need be for this in our curriculum (but that gives us some "wiggle room" to have some fun with it, too!)

After length comes lovely area!  99.999% of the time, I can get through to my kiddos that it's not as big and scary as they think it to be!  All that we do in 2nd grade is find the number of "square units" (square tiles) that fit inside different shapes!  So again, we can use our inch tile manips, or even fun square Cheez-its!  :)

TODAY, we did a brand new activity that I picked up earlier this school year at Kim Sutton's "Critical Math Content" conference!  LOVE her and LOVE her ideas!  Even after many years of teaching, she still comes up with fabulous new things, and she's still SO enthusiastic about teaching! 

(As a side note, I've attended 2 Kim Sutton conferences and seen her at the CAMT convention last summer.  I will admit that she throws TONS of information at you in a few short hours, but she is a BRILLIANT teacher and really understands how to teach children math!!!  My goal for myself when I see her is to simply take away ONE thing that I can use in the classroom, and save the rest for later, because if not, I would probably hit stress over-load and fall over in convulsions!!!)

So anyways, here's a little look at our "Area Zoo"s!  In Kim's "Critical Math Content" book, she provides the masters to these fun and cute animals.  I gave each of my students 3 different animals.  The began by coloring and cutting them out.

Then, we glued them in our "zoo" and figured out the areas!

Finally, we HAD to add bars to their cages, or they'd escape!  (And we wouldn't want that, now would we?)

So cute! :)

In the very end, after everyone had finished and turned in, we came back to our meeting rug and took a look at MY colored animals.  Then, with tape on the back, we compared the animals on the board.  We ordered them from least area to greatest.  We also just compared 2 animals, with a circle in the middle for a greater than (>), less than (<), or equal to (=) sign!

And here's one last fun picture I just had to add in...there's not really a spot for it, but it's so crazy colored and silly, I couldn't resist.  It makes me smile (and if you knew the kiddo, it'd make you smile, too!) :)

***Also, don't forget about my "Totally, Terrific, Tinkerin' Giveaway!".  If you haven't already entered, stop by my post to see how you can win the 9 great prizes!!!  And be sure to hurry, because it ends Wednesday night!!!  I wouldn't want you to miss out!  Simply click the banner below to go to the post directly.

A BIG "THANK YOU" to everyone who has already entered!!!

Happy Entering! :)