[PrivateEyes]

I have to come up with a week's worth of lessons on liquid measurement. pints, cups, quarts, liters, gallons for my grade level. My second graders need to be able to compare these using greater than, less than, and eqivilent, but dont need to know exact eqivilents like 2 cups eqal one pint. Unfortunately there is NOTHING in our math series.

Adding to my frustration, I broke my finger severely last week and my whole hand is in a cast and I hate, hate, hate typing onehanded. If any of tou have any ideas, I would really apprecate it,

[LindaR]

Hi PrivateEyes,

So sorry to hear of your broken finger!

Here is an excellent link that should get you started. There's even a song to go with it!

http://www.education-world.com/a_les...ilylp094.shtml

For a comparison activity, you could have the students cut out liquid items from magazine and/or newspaper ads (i.e. orange juice, milk...) and sort them according to greater than/less than/equal. After sorting, posters can be made. As well, you might want to bring in some containers for students to hold and feel the weights. Empty ones can also be used to make the Gallon Guy visual.

I teach 6th grade, but my students still need the visuals to go with the liquid measurements. I usually give them copies of my Gallon Guy (see attachment).

Have fun!
LindaR

[mab]

I usually have my second graders make Gallon Guy. You can find a pattern for him at Laura Candler's website. It's www.lauracandler.com/ Click on File Cabinet, then Math Activities. Scroll down. You'll see a bunch of stuff for Gallon Guy.

[trexteach]

When I taught 2nd grade, I went to a nearby, (Well, actually about an hour away!) dairy factory where they generously supplied me with new, empty pint and quart containers. I collected some used half-pint cartons from the cafeteria, cleaned them out, and taped them shut. I also cleaned out one of my empty gallon jugs. I attached them all together with yarn so that they looked like the "Gallon Guy" the others have attached to their posts. I added a face and we called him the Measurement Man. I hung him up as a display that we could continue to refer to when we discussed liquid measure. I also sent home a Measurement Man page so the students and their parents could see the relationships. I actually had some parents thank me for this because they said it even made seeing the relationships easier for them to remember!

I kept him stored in a locker for future use. The kids really benefitted from this hands-on 3-D model.

With my 5th graders (Your second graders could even use this too, though), I use the giant "G" (for gallon) that has 1 "Q" (for quart) filling up each corner of the "G". Then there are 2 "P"s (for pints) that fill up the "Q". Next, there are 2 "C"s (for cups) inside each "P". This is a quick thing the students can memorize and write onto their worksheets, quizzes, or test papers to help them remember the relationships. (Sorry--This is much easier to understand visually than written out like I have!)

[jch]

I teach 6th grade and also use the giant G visual she described in her post. It's amazing how even the 6th graders still haven't gotten it cemented in their minds.

An addition to trexteach's description would be to make the horizontal line of the G to go across the G equidistant from the top to the bottom of the G.

We just finished a unit in math which included this. I had most of my 6th graders drawing it on their test paper to make sure of their answers.

I think the Giant G originally came from Saxon math. I'll try to recreate it and attach it to this post.

[PrivateEyes]

Thank you all for your help. I usually can figure this stuff out myself, but I was just so frustrated and tired. You all really helped me out!