Snowman Math, PreK Style

 The kids had a great time with this project. First we compared the children's heights so everyone fully understood the concept of our activity.

Keywords and Concepts:
     Short
     Shorter
     Shortest
     Tall
     Taller
     Tallest
     Equal
     Same Size




The kids took turns measuring and comparing their heights with their friends. I loved when one of them would look up several inches to a friend and with a flat hand on their head take it up to the top of their friends head and declare they were the same size or taller.  When comparing others they could clearly see a height difference but when comparing themselves it was much harder for them.


~ When hanging up our snowman we made sure he was about the average height of  the kids in our classroom to ensure that we could meet all three of our statements. This would not work as well if most of the kids were shorter or taller than the snowman.
~ We also had to decide if we were measuring from top of his head or the top of his hat. We choose his head but we had to improvise with an outline of his head on the hat because we had glued on the hat and the kids couldn't figure out where the top of his head was.

Each of them decorated a snowman with markers before we added them to our door.   This worked well for two reasons. First, it gave them each a way to personalize their snowman and make it their own. But it also gave us a way to break up the group of 18 kids so we could get them all measured and on the door in a somewhat orderly fashion.

As they finished with their snowman they brought it to me at the door and I had them guess if they were taller, shorter or the same size as our snowman. Then we measured. I helped them hold a ruler on the top of their heads and then they stepped away from the door to see where they measured.

This is displayed on the inside of our classroom door so the kids are proud to show their parents how tall they are compared to our snowman. (: