Story: The inspiration for this Math Vitamin came from the class read aloud book, Secret of Platform 13. The main characters in the book, the King and Queen, are shipping items for their new prince’s bedroom. They need the students’ help measuring various items around the classroom to see if all the listed items, such as staplers, phones, pillows, tape dispensers, pencils, books and even a rug could fit into his new room.

Suggested manipulatives: Using rulers, yardsticks and tape measures that include both inches and metric markings are ideal for this project.

Prep time: Adapting the vitamin wording to fit your specific story, putting manipulatives out in the room, creating the data sheets and copying the vitamin documentation forms will take about 5-15 minutes. Set up is always more fun and shorter on time if you do this activity with a colleague.

Classroom time: Asking children to “do their best work” for each Math Vitamin assumes that some children will need a longer time than others. Ideally you want to offer a block of time for Math Vitamin projects and have another task available (writing, free exploration etc.) for those students who finish work prior to their peers. For this project allow 30-60 minutes for students to work through all the steps. Its an active project that requires a lot of movement around the classroom as well as sharing of ideas and perspectives.

How to individualize/stretch: For students learning how to measure with standard measurement tools (as opposed to non-standard things like hands, teddy bears, cubes etc.) starting off with solid items is ideal. In the video, you see some students who have taken on a challenge of measuring a soft pillow (identifying the height of this item is more difficult than a book). For students who are not yet ready for the abstract concept of Std. measurement, have them do the same project with one inch, or centimeter cubes,. Try using a Cuisenaire measuring stick, that requires centimeter cubes in the track for counting the actual measurement.

Story: The study of superheroes would not be complete without looking at the qualities found in their super-clothing! Excited about a character from the recent read aloud called “Powerless”, students have already spent a few days designing clothing and figuring out the measurements for their costume fabric by building rectangular arrays for a superhero. Today, they are going shopping for the super fabric! The fabric is priced by square centimeters so students must calculate each arrays total centimeters and then the actual cost for all the material needed from the store. All Math Vitamins require students to build, draw and record their work as well as share their thoughts with peers and teachers. The strong UCDS math community within each classroom is developed through the process of peer and teacher conversations that focus on exciting mathematical tasks and engaging ideas about the various approaches to solve them.

Suggested manipulatives: base ten blocks are ideal for this project as you can build large multiplication arrays quickly but each centimeter unit is easily visible students to double-check their counting. You could also use singular centimeter cubes, Unifix cubes or multilinks for smaller arrays.

Prep time: Adapting the vitamin wording to fit your specific story, putting manipulatives out in the room, creating the stores shopping sheet and copying the vitamin documentation forms will take about 15-20 minutes. Set up is always more fun and shorter on time if you do this activity with a colleague.

Classroom time: Asking children to “do their best work” for each Math Vitamin assumes that some children will need a longer time than others. Ideally you want to offer a block of time for Math Vitamin projects and have another task available (writing, free exploration etc.) for those students who finish work prior to their peers. For this project allow 45-60 minutes for students to work through all the steps.

How to individualize/stretch: Start kids off learning to build arrays with smaller numbers and make the total area the cost of the fabric. Move on to larger number arrays and start assigning values for each square centimeter. As students gain skills, give them budgets to spend and vary the price of different types of fabric so they design a costume that uses their budget with either “no” or a range for the maximum remainder.