MA.4.M.1.1

Select and use appropriate tools to measure attributes of objects.

Clarifications

Clarification 1: Attributes include length, volume, weight, mass and temperature.

Clarification 2: Instruction includes digital measurements and scales that are not linear in appearance.

Clarification 3: When recording measurements, use fractions and decimals where appropriate.

General Information
Subject Area: Mathematics (B.E.S.T.)
Grade: 4
Strand: Measurement
Status: State Board Approved

Benchmark Instructional Guide

Connecting Benchmarks/Horizontal Alignment

Terms from the K-12 Glossary

  • NA

Vertical Alignment

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Purpose and Instructional Strategies

The purpose of this benchmark is to select and use tools to measure with precision. This concept  builds on work to connect linear measurement to number lines (MA.3.M.1.1). 
  • Students will measure using the customary units of linear measurement to the nearest 18 and 116 of an inch. 
  • Students will measure volume, weight, mass and temperature using fractions or decimals where appropriate. As students work with this benchmark, they will begin to see relationships between units. For example, they will see that 10 millimeters is equivalent to one centimeter so one millimeter is 110 of a centimeter.
  • For instruction of linear measurement, spend time showing students equivalent fractions on a number line and how that connects to rulers and tape measures. Students should also gain experience measuring things larger than their piece of paper or their textbook so they can make decisions about what the best tool to measure is. 
  • Students should be given multiple opportunities to measure the same object with different measuring units. For example, have the students measure the length of a room with one-inch tiles, one-foot rulers and yardsticks. Students should notice that it takes fewer yard sticks to measure the room than rulers or tiles and explain their reasoning. 
  • For instruction of liquid volume, give students experiences with real-world measuring cups and graduated cylinders. 
  • For instruction of mass and weight, give students opportunities to use real-world balances and scales so they understand how they work and how to read measurements. 
  • For measuring temperature, provide examples of digital and analog thermometers. Examples of nonlinear scales include weight scales commonly used in grocery stores and many thermometers. 
  • Using protractors to measure angles provides the connection between MA.4.GR.2.1 and measurement with nonlinear scales.

Common Misconceptions or Errors

  • Students who struggle to identify benchmarks on number lines can also struggle to measure units of length, liquid volume, weight, mass and temperature. To assist students with this misconception, during instruction teachers should allow students to measure often and provide feedback. Students can also complete error and reasoning analysis activities to identify this common measurement misconception

Strategies to Support Tiered Instruction

  • Instruction includes opportunities to measure often and provide feedback. Use error and reasoning analysis activities to address common measurement difficulties. 
  • Instruction includes providing students with a variety of objects. Ask students which tool they would use to measure each object. Discussions would include asking which attribute of the object is to be measured.
    • For example, objects could include a banana (where length or weight could be measured), water in a container (where temperature, volume or weight could be measured).

Instructional Tasks

Instructional Task 1 (MTR.7.1

Use a thermometer to measure the temperature to the nearest 0.1 degree Fahrenheit at 8:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. every day for one week. Record each temperature in a table.

Instructional Items

Instructional Items 1 

A pencil is shown. Using the ruler provided, what is the length of the pencil to the nearest 18inch? 

ruler and pencil


*The strategies, tasks and items included in the B1G-M are examples and should not be considered comprehensive.

Related Courses

This benchmark is part of these courses.
5012060: Grade Four Mathematics (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
7712050: Access Mathematics Grade 4 (Specifically in versions: 2014 - 2015, 2015 - 2018, 2018 - 2022, 2022 and beyond (current))
5012065: Grade 4 Accelerated Mathematics (Specifically in versions: 2019 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))
5012015: Foundational Skills in Mathematics 3-5 (Specifically in versions: 2019 - 2022, 2022 - 2024, 2024 and beyond (current))

Related Access Points

Alternate version of this benchmark for students with significant cognitive disabilities.
MA.4.M.1.AP.1a: Select and use appropriate tools to measure length (i.e., inches, feet, yards), liquid volume (i.e., gallons, quarts, pints, cups) and temperature (i.e., degrees Fahrenheit).
MA.4.M.1.AP.1b: Explore selecting and using appropriate tools to measure weight (i.e., ounces, pounds).

Related Resources

Vetted resources educators can use to teach the concepts and skills in this benchmark.

Lesson Plans

Motion for Speed:

Students will investigate the relationships between the initial speed of a car and the distance required for it to stop.  Students will record their results onto a student guide to determine how a car moving faster or slower affects its ability to stop.  Finally, students will investigate why we have different speed limits on different roads in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Measure Up! Measuring to make a line plot.:

In this lesson, students will generate measurement data by measuring lengths using rulers and show the data by making a line plot.

Type: Lesson Plan

Give An Inch, Take A Foot:

In this activity students practice measuring techniques by measuring different objects and distances around the classroom. They practice using different scales of measurement in metric units and estimation.

Type: Lesson Plan

On the Hunt for Measurements: Estimation, Area and Perimeter of Rectangles:

Students look for rectangular objects in the classroom or on the school campus that match the measurements for given clues. Students will estimate the measurements of the object, then take the exact measurements and use this information to determine its area and perimeter.

Type: Lesson Plan

Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) STEM Lesson

Physical Science Unit: Water Beach Vacation Lesson 9 Cool Cooler Design Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA):

In this MEA, students will have the opportunity to apply what they learned about describing
the changes water undergoes when it changes state through heating and cooling. Students
will be asked to rank coolers based on data to solve an open-ended, realistic problem, while
considering constraints and tradeoffs. In the optional twist, students will need to take the
mass of the cooler into account.

This is a lesson in the Grade 3 Physical Science Unit on Water. This is a themed unit ofSaM-1's adventures while on a Beach Vacation.  To see all the lessons in the unit please visit https://www.cpalms.org/page818.aspx.

 

Type: Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) STEM Lesson

Original Student Tutorial

Timmy's Trouble with Taffy:

Learn to estimate and measure the masses of objects in grams and kilograms in this interactive tutorial with an animal hospital theme.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Using Manipulatives to Create Stem and Leaf Plots:

Unlock an effective teaching strategy for teaching stem and leaf plots in this Teacher Perspectives video for educators.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Professional Development

What Does It Mean To Measure?:

This is a professional development session from the Learning Math series from Annenberg. Learners will begin to explore the questions "What can be measured?" and "What does it mean to measure something?" Learners identify measurable properties of objects such as weight, surface area, and volume, and discuss which metric units are appropriate for measuring these properties. Learners will also learn that measurement is, by its nature, approximate. Finally, learners will consider how to make measurements using nonstandard units. This session features a number of problems for learners to solve and open-ended questions to discuss, videos that demonstrate measurement techniques, and an interactive activity that asks learners to construct shapes using different size triangles to foster understanding of area and perimeter. There are also nine homework problems in which learners are asked to generate different measurements, graph measurements, and evaluate the appropriateness of the measurements generated using a data chart. Many of the professional development activities can be used directly in the classroom.

Type: Professional Development

Teaching Idea

Ball Bounce Experiment:

Students investigate different balls' abilities to bounce and represent the data they collect graphically.

Type: Teaching Idea

Tutorials

Metric System: Units of Volume:

This Khan Academy tutorial video illustrates the conversion equivalence of liters, milliliters, and kiloliters.

Type: Tutorial

U.S. customary units: fluid volume:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore U.S. customary units of fluid volume (teaspoon, tablespoon, fluid ounce, cup, pint, quart, and gallon).

Type: Tutorial

U.S. customary units: weight:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore pounds, ounces and tons.

Type: Tutorial

Video/Audio/Animation

Soybean growth rate response to touch:

A time-lapse video showing differential growth rates for touch-treated seedlings and control seedlings. This would be appropriate for lessons about plant growth responses to environmental stress and graphing growth rate. Plants were grown in a vermiculite soilless medium with calcium-enhanced water. No other minerals or nutrients were used. Plants were grown in a dark room with specially-filtered green light. The plants did not grow by cellular reproduction but only by expansion of existing cells in the hypocotyl region below the 'hook'.
Video contains three plants in total. The first two plants to emerge from the vermiculite medium are the control (right) and treatment (left) plants. A third plant emerges in front of these two but is removed at the time of treatment and is not relevant except to help indicate when treatment was applied (watch for when it disappears). When that plant disappears, the slowed growth rate of the treatment plant is apparent.
Treatment included a gentle flexing of the hypocotyl region of the treatment seedling for approximately 5 seconds. A rubber glove was used at this time to avoid an contamination of the plant tissue.
Some video players allow users to 'scrub' the playback back and forth. This would help teachers or students isolate particular times (as indicated by the watch) and particular measurements (as indicated by the cm scale). A graph could be constructed by first creating a data table and then plotting the data points from the table. Multiple measurements from the video could be taken to create an accurate graph of the plants' growth rates (treatment vs control).
Instructions for graphing usage:
The scale in the video is in centimeters (one cm increments). Students could observe the initial time on the watch in the video and use that observation to represent time (t) = 0. For that value, a mark could be made to indicate the height of the seedlings. As they advance and pause the video repeatedly, the students would mark the time (+2.5 hours for example) and mark the related seedling heights. It is not necessary to advance the video at any regular interval but is necessary to mark the time and related heights as accurately as possible. Students may use different time values and would thus have different data sets but should find that their graphs are very similar. (Good opportunity to collect data from real research and create their own data sets) It is advised that the students collect multiple data points around the time where the seedling growth slows in response to touch to more accurately collect information around that growth rate slowing event. The resulting graph should have an initial growth rate slope, a flatter slope after stress treatment, and a return to approximately the same slope as seen pre-treatment. More data points should yield a more thorough view of this. This would be a good point to discuss. Students can use some of their data points to calculate approximate pre-treatment, immediate post-treatment, and late post-treatment slopes for both the control and treatment seedlings.
This video was created by the submitter and is original content.
Full screen playback should be an option for most video players. Video quality may appear degraded with a larger image but this may aid viewing the watch and scale for data collection.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

Original Student Tutorials Mathematics - Grades K-5

Timmy's Trouble with Taffy:

Learn to estimate and measure the masses of objects in grams and kilograms in this interactive tutorial with an animal hospital theme.

Student Resources

Vetted resources students can use to learn the concepts and skills in this benchmark.

Original Student Tutorial

Timmy's Trouble with Taffy:

Learn to estimate and measure the masses of objects in grams and kilograms in this interactive tutorial with an animal hospital theme.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Tutorials

Metric System: Units of Volume:

This Khan Academy tutorial video illustrates the conversion equivalence of liters, milliliters, and kiloliters.

Type: Tutorial

U.S. customary units: fluid volume:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore U.S. customary units of fluid volume (teaspoon, tablespoon, fluid ounce, cup, pint, quart, and gallon).

Type: Tutorial

U.S. customary units: weight:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore pounds, ounces and tons.

Type: Tutorial

Parent Resources

Vetted resources caregivers can use to help students learn the concepts and skills in this benchmark.

Tutorials

U.S. customary units: fluid volume:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore U.S. customary units of fluid volume (teaspoon, tablespoon, fluid ounce, cup, pint, quart, and gallon).

Type: Tutorial

U.S. customary units: weight:

In this video tutorial from Khan Academy, explore pounds, ounces and tons.

Type: Tutorial