Easy Measurement
Trixie was 3 years
and 6 months old at the time that this video was made.
The Problem
Trixie is doing a problem on a worksheet.
My purpose in giving her this worksheet is to prepare her for
measurement division word problems.
(When working with children one-on-one, worksheets are generally
unnecessary.
But Trixie sees that her older school-age cousins get worksheets for
homework. So she
wants homework also.)
In the problem that Trixie is working on here there are 8 smiley faces
and Trixie must circle groups of 4 of them and then count
and record how many groups of 4 there are. This activity is analogous
to solving a measurement
word problem - like, if you have 8 smiley face stickers and you want to
stick 4 on each finger, then how many fingers will get stickers?
What To Look For In This Video
- Trixie easily understands that she is to circle groups of 4 smilely faces and easily recognizes groups of 4.
- But in response to the question "how many bunches of 4 are there?" she counts the smilely faces rather than the groups. She doesn't understand what the question requires her to do.
- I show her, in a very explicit way, exactly what she is supposed to do. This is not the kind of thing that she can figure out on her own.