Unit 6 Length Measurements Within 120 Units (Family Materials)

In this unit, students measure length and count measurement units up to 120. They also solve addition and subtraction story problems with unknowns in all positions.

Near the end of the unit ask your student to measure different objects around the home using paper clips and write the measurements down.

Questions that may be helpful as they work:

What is the longest object you measured? The shortest object?
How much longer is the than the ?
What is the length of and combined?

Section A From Direct to Indirect Comparisons

In this section, students use indirect comparison to order three objects by length. For example, if the highlighter is longer than the pen and the pencil is shorter than the pen, then we know the highlighter is longer than the pencil.

Section B Measure by Iterating up to 120 Length Units

In this section, students learn the conventions of length measurement and represent length measurements with a number and a unit. They understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of same-size length units that span it without gaps or overlaps.

Shoe. Underneath from toe to heel, 15 connecting cubes all the same size in a tower.

Students use manipulatives (connecting cubes, paper clips, and base-ten cubes) as length units. They use base-ten cubes to measure lengths that are longer than 99 units as they expand their counting and number-writing skills to 120. In the example, the shoe is 15 connecting cubes long.

Section C All Kinds of Story Problems

In this section, students solve all types of story problems with unknowns in all positions. Students use the context of measurement which invites them to build and compare concrete objects as they solve problems. They interpret diagrams that represent these problems. Students will be asked to solve a problem like:

Kiran’s bracelet is 14 cubes long.
His sister’s bracelet is 10 cubes long.
How much longer is Kiran’s bracelet than his sister’s?

And make sense of this representation of the problem:

Diagram. Two rectangles. Bottom rectangle, 10 white cubes. Top rectangle, 10 white cubes and 4 blue cubes. Same size cubes.

Students solve take away problems when the start is unknown. These problems can be tricky because the action is take away but students need to add to solve the problem.

For example:

Elena has some beads in a box.
She uses 5 of them to make a bracelet.
She has 10 beads left.
How many beads were in Elena’s box?

An equation that represents the situation is $? - 5 = 10$ . However, students might write $10 + 5 = ?$ to find the answer to the question.

It is important for students to explain how the equation they wrote matches the story problem.