Teaching How To Use A Ruler

For the past 2 weeks I have been trying to teach my lovely children how to use a ruler. After 7.5 months of intense experience of Samoan classroom teaching, I anticipated how things would go, and I created a 5 page packet that would take the class through every detail of measuring given dimensions. This, however, turned into a much much trickier task. My kids faced huge troubles with understanding a mixed number (for example, 3 1/4”). They struggle with understanding how that makes a single dimension. I then added in the complication of creating rectangles from given dimensions (2 5/16” x 1 2/8”) and drawing those rectangles perfectly by using a ruler and a triangle. 

It has taken 2.5 weeks but I think we are almost there after explaining by breaking down each step, various practice worksheets, jumbo sized rulers on the chalk board, and a life size, walkable ruler I created on the floor! (Though most kids prefer to use the life size ruler to measure how far they can jump.)