NAME ______________________________ DATE _______________

FAMILY LETTER

(PAGE 1 OF 2)

Related Activities to Try at Home

Dear Family,

The activities below are related to the mathematics in the geometry and measurement unit Measuring and Classifying Shapes. You can use the activities to enrich your child's mathematical learning experience.

How Long Is It? Look for opportunities for you and your child to estimate and measure lengths and distances in real-life contexts, using both U.S. standard and metric units. You might have your own benchmarks to help you estimate. What do you imagine when you think of a centimeter? A yard? A mile? For instance, you might know that your index fingernail is about a centimeter wide, or that it is a mile to the post office. Show your child how you use various measurement tools in your own measurement activities—hobbies like sewing and carpentry are a natural for this. You and your child can go outside to measure larger distances. How many yards is it to the end of the block? What's the distance in feet between two trees? What would that same distance be in meters?

Building Polygons You and your child can use household materials to create 2-dimensional figures. You can use toothpicks or straws for the sides of your polygons, and small marshmallows, clay, or jelly beans as fasteners for the vertices. How many different kinds of quadrilaterals can you build? How many different kinds of triangles? What different-sized angles can you make?

Table of Contents