For a fun measurement idea using nonstandard units like craft sticks or cotton balls, try Tablecloth Measuring.
All you need is a cheap rectangular plastic table cloth—the kind like you buy at the dollar store to use for a kids’ birthday party then gleefully wad up and throw away afterwards. Cut the table cloth in half so it’s about 4 ½ feet square. (You can use the other half to make another set of materials for this activity. Kids like variety!)
Then find those scrapbooking stickers you have tucked away for the day you actually have time to make a scrapbook for your kids or your pets. (I have a disgusting number of these guilt-inducing reminders of my not-quite-perfect mom-ness kicking around.)
Place 4-5 “sets” of similar stickers in sections of the tablecloth. I like to use a "clump" of stickers so that when kids place the nonstandard units, the units can kind of extend into the clump. That way, kids don't have to be concerned about halves.
Use a marker to draw lines to connect the sets of stickers. These lines help guide kids' placement of the nonstandard units. Without the lines, kids have a tendency to "wander" in their work.
Children use nonstandard units like craft sticks, cotton balls, beans, drinking straws, paper clips, unifix cubes, toothpicks, or bobby pins to measure from one set of stickers to another.
Where's the math? In this video, Knox uses craft sticks to find out how far it is from the giraffes to the outer space stickers. Next, I'd switch nonstandard units and have him use drinking straws. Prior to laying out the straws, I'd ask him first to guess if it will take more or fewer straws than it did craft sticks. I am prompting him to use proportional reasoning and to consider a BIG idea in measurement: the number of units needed to make the measurement is inversely related to the size of the unit. The larger the unit, the fewer you'll need. The smaller the unit, the more you'll need. So a short unit (like craft sticks) takes more units to do the measurement than a long unit (like straws). This is so awesome for kids to DISCOVER! And this task helps them do it!
If you want more fun math ideas that build math-positive mindsets, check out my webpage
https://www.carriecutler.com/ or my new book Math-Positive Mindsets: Growing a Child's Mind without Losing Yours (available on Amazon).
