A Fun Counting Game

This is a guesstimation type game that challenges the students to work on teams while using different body parts to measure the distance from one point to another using lines on the court. I have done the lesson with both the kindergarten/G1 and G2/3 classes this week. I started each class with the students laying down head to toe in a line and count how many bodies it took for them to cross the length of the court. I would have the team guesstimate the number first and write it down and then compare to the actual number that it took. See the slide show below for other ways we measured the distance across the court. The grade 2/3 class is doing a unit on 'Money' right now, so as an extention, I posed different challenges to them to spark their thinking in Maths. For example, if it took 34 legs to cross the court, I told them that each leg was 25 cents or a quarter and asked them how many dollars and cents that was. We used other currencies as well to challenge them into doing this mental maths activity.