Three Feet in a Yard

Before I invite you into my yard, I have a  funny story I must share. Our district is starting a program enabling the kids to sample fresh fruits and vegetables periodically at lunch. This week it was blackberries. When they made the announcement about it, I tried to get them excited about tasting them. It went a little something like this:

Me: Oh, blackberries are so good! Make sure you try some today at lunch (feeling like a total hypocrite because I can't remember actually eating one myself)

Kid: I've tried one before!

Me: Really, did you like it?

Kid: Yeah, it was alright, but then my dad got an iphone.

I totally cracked up, I couldn't help it. I asked him if he thought they were actually going to let them try out cell phones at lunch and he looked at me and said, "Well, what is it?" I guess this program is not such a bad idea after all.

Now on to a great math project to really reinforce the idea that there are three feet in a yard. I learned this at county training a couple of years ago and it made the entire week-long training worthwhile. It's a pretty simple project too, which is even better. First, a picture so you can see what the heck I'm talking about. Exciting details to follow:

Three feet in a yard, get it? First, students hot-dog fold an 18 inch sheet of green construction paper and cut it in half on the fold. Then I have to help tape them end to end to make one long "yard" that is 36 inches long. They can't overlap or it won't fit the feet. Then, the kids decorate the yard with some details that you'd have in a yard - grass, a cat, bugs (one had dog poop...for real. Oy, that's what I get for asking).

Students then trace three feet on black paper and glue a paper inchworm 12 inch ruler on each foot, glue them end to end in the yard and voila! An amazing visual reminder that there are three feet in a yard! Then we use these yardsticks to measure all kinds of things around the room.

This is one of my very favorite math projects. They really remember the concept after this lesson. I let them take the yardsticks home to measure things around their house and to use for the homework in the math book. You can click {HERE} for patterns for the foot and inch ruler if you want to make your own yards. Maybe next year I'll add a blackberry bush or some other fruit trees to make this a bit more thematic ;)