1-2-3 Come Do Some "Room on the Broom" Measurement Activities With Me
Do you read “Room on the Broom” by Julia Donaldson? It’s one of my students’ favorite Halloween stories.
It occurred to me, while thinking about the many animals that are being added to the broom, that I could really make this lesson come alive, by having students figure out how many of THEM could fit on a broom.
I had an absolute blast creating these quick, easy & fun activities, all of which have to do with measurement, and are easy-peasy “print & go”.
I know that your students will truly enjoy these hands-on “experiments” using a real broom.
The activities can be done as a whole group with younger kiddos, or in groups of 3-5 students.
Decide what format is best for your class, and pick the various "Room on a Broom" “challenges” accordingly.
If you’re looking for an educational & engaging activity for your Halloween party day, I think you’ll find this to be an absolute winner.
There’s plenty of options, so you can easily diversify your lessons.
Activities will help practice cooperation, estimation, measurement, addition, “thinking outside the box”, graphing, brainstorming, data collection, observation & analysis.
Students can also compare & contrast whether using a pool noodle, provides more room on a broom than a regular broomstick.
I made a "yes/no" graphing extension for this. Kiddos come up and write their name in the appropriate column.
Not too surprising, almost all of my students thought you could fit more kiddos on a pool noodle.
I think this is because they see it as "fatter," thus there should be more room.
This is much like the fact that my Y5s have a hard time remembering that a nickel is worth 5 cents, while a dime is worth 10. They think that the nickel should be worth 10 cents because it is bigger. Makes perfect sense to me!
This leads us into a wondeful discussion about length and how that's the most important variable when loading people on a broom.
There’s also a bonus challenge (“The teacher wants to ‘drive’ the broom...") to extend the math lesson if time permits, or simply add this activity to another day.
“Something to Think About….” is another extension activity: here a new student has just arrived along with the dragon! You must fit them on your already full broom! How can you do that?
A “Save the Day!” activity, gives students yet another option to try out for “making room on their classroom broom.” In the end, will they have enough room to save the principal from the dragon as well?
"Delving Deeper!" and "Let's Make Convertions" ( inches to feet, feet to yards...) provide for more measurement activities.
Taking pictures as your children do the various activities, combined with the “challenge worksheets”, makes for a great bulletin board or hallway display.
I’ve included several posters to add some extra pizzazz.
If you'd like your students to listen to the story again, YouTube has a nice 8-minute read aloud.
After your measurement activities, you could watch the Netflix “Room on the Broom” video, which takes just 24 minutes.
Woo Hoo; some quiet time at the end of a fun-filled day.
If you’d like to practice sequencing & retelling the story on another day, check out the LINK for my “Room on the Broom Storytelling Craftivity”.
Today's featured FREEBIE is "10 Little Pumpkins" song-poster with manipulatives.
It goes to the tune of "10 Little Indians" . My kiddos really enjoy this activity.
It's also an easy & quick way to practice +1 addition, as well as counting backwards from 10-1.
I hope you find it useful.
Well that's it for today. Thanks for stopping by.
The rain has finally stopped and Mr. Sunshine has made an appearance.
I'm excited to buy some pumpkins and cornstalks to go with my mums. Love decorating for fall.
Wishing you and the little "punkins" in your life, a frolicking & fun-filled day.
"Skill to do, comes of doing." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
