Instructional Writing (Literacy) / Measurement (Mathematics)

Theory

Linking literacy and mathematics together, we followed instructional writing from Quintin to make darts.

Some students found the following of these instructions more challenging than others, however, everyone helped each other out.

Practical

The Paper Dart Fly Off.... after making the darts, we decided to test their flying ability. We tested the distance using standard and non-standard measurement. A lot of preparation and work went into understanding these two concepts.

All students had to predict their flying distance in both measuring concepts, then measure the actual distance using standard measurement (meter ruler) and a non-standard measure (literacy book).

Some students were very surprised with their dart making skills as their actual flying distance was a lot longer than they had anticipated!

Great success ....!!!

Measuring

Standard and non-standard measuring 

Students were asked to predict the flying distance and then measure the actual distance using standard (meter ruler) and non-standard (literacy book) measurements.

Some students were surprised with their dart making ability - the dart flew further than originally thought!

 

  

Standing where our darts had landed....!

Helping each other measure to ensure accuracy.
A lot of understanding and work had previously taken place to ensure students knew how to measure correctly.

  

Instructional Writing

After modelling procedural writing, and demonstrating that instructions must explicit and succinct, students crafted their own set of instructions, in sequence, using bossy verbs for every step and provided illustrations to assist the reader to complete a set of instructions.

In these photos children were to follow a set of instructions on how to fold paper into a 'fortune' teller'. Students were instructed to write down each step. Once I completed the 'fortune teller' they had to copy their set of instructions to create their own 'fortune teller' - the end result was to look like mine.

Successful outcome!