Table of Contents

QR Code

13 The Longest Step

A rabbit, elephant and deer are talking to each other and walking.

Three friends - a rabbit, an elephant and a deer - were playing together in a park.

Let us see who crosses the stone bridge first!

But both of you run fast and I move slowly. I know that one of you would cross the bridge first. I don't want to play the game.

Don’t worry Let's make a rule - we will not run . We will walk.

Yes, it will be fun.        

They started the game.

Surprisingly, at the end, the elephant won.

  • Can you tell why the elephant won?
  • Who takes the biggest step?
  • Act out this story.

Activity

A boy is sitting on a table and another boy is sitting on another table, little away from him. The second boy wants to know, how far his friend is sitting from him.

  • Make a group of 3-4 friends. Find out by drawing lines whose step is the longest.
  • Find the distance between
  1. the door and any window of your class.
  2. the blackboard and where you are sitting.

Hand or Fingers?

A by is holding a bat in his hand. There is a pencil, a duster, a sharpener on the table. A book and a matchstick are lying on the floor.

Rajat wants to find out the length of a few things using his handspan. These are shown in the picture.

  • Can he use a handspan to find the length of all these?
  • Which things around you are less than your handspan? Name them.
  • What would you use to find the length of those things?

Activity

A girl and a boy with their mud houses kept on a table.

Make a mud house. See whose mud house is higher. You can use your fingers to find how high your mud house is.

  • Who made the highest mud house?
  • Whose mud house is the smallest?

Make a Guess

A large coconut tree and a small coconut tree, almost half of the first one.

See these two coconut trees. If the bigger tree is 6 metres high, about how high is the smaller tree?

Check Your Guess

A teacher with a long plait is teaching and a boy is asking, how long is madam's plait?

Guess the length or height of the things shown below. Find the length to check your answer.

Name of the thing

My guess

My result

Glass

....... fingers

.......

Bucket

....... handspans

....... handspans

You hand

....... matchsticks

....... matchsticks

Teacher’s table

....... handspans

....... handspans

Your nose

....... fingers

....... fingers

Water bottle

....... fingers

....... fingers

Your hair

....... handspans

....... handspans

Demonstrate the correct use of units like fingers, handspans and matchsticks. Ask children to take an object and measure it using different units.

In a box, there is a hut drawn on one side and a cat on the other side and a mouse with a bowl of milk at the base.

  • Use your fingers to find out the distance between the rat and the milk. ....... fingers
  • How far is the cat from the rat? ....... fingers
  • How far is the cat from the milk? ....... fingers
  • What will the cat reach first ....... the rat or the milk?
  • Can the rat save itself? How?
  • Tell a story using this picture.
  • How long is the rat's tail? ....... fingers
  • Who has longer ....... whiskers? The rat or the cat?

There is a stone and an ant drawn on one corner of the box and a monkey one at the base of the box.

  • Draw a leaf 2 fingers away from the stone.
  • Draw a banana 5 matchsticks away from the monkey.
  • Draw a kite 7 fingers away from the stone.
  • Draw a cloud 3 matchsticks away from the kite.
  • Draw a bird 4 fingers away from the banana.

Draw yourself anywhere on the page. Find how far you are from the monkey's nose.

Let children measure and draw in any direction from the given reference object. They will measure distances in different directions. This can form the basis for a discussion on directions.

Is That So?

Sanju and her friends were trying to find out the length of their different body parts. Here is what they found out —

A girl is saying that her forehead is about four fingers wide, a boy is saying that his face is about one handspan long and another says that his arm is not as long as his leg.

My face is about one handspan long.

My arm is not as long as my leg.

My forehead is about four fingers wide.

a) Do you agree with what they said?

b) Check how many of your friends have —

  1. a face one handspan long .......        
  2. the arm as long as the leg .......        
  3. a forehead 4 fingers wide .......

c) You can try and measure other body parts with your fingers and write their length.

  1. Your nose is ....... fingers long.
  2. Your ear is ....... fingers long.

The estimates of body proportions given here are rough. This exercise is only to carry out measurement using body parts, and not to make any general claims about body proportions.