“He’s called an inchworm because he’s an inch long!” exclaimed several excited first-grade students as they measured different paths that a worm could crawl through a garden. As a class, we had just read Inch by Inch (Lionni 1960), which tells the story of an inchworm that escapes from a hungry robin by proving he is useful for measuring. The inchworm measures many different objects, including a toucan’s beak, a flamingo’s neck, and a hummingbird. The concept of having the inchworm measure items helped us design a lesson that focused on exploring length measurement through examining the meaning of an inch.
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