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Problem introduction
At the beginning of the school year, kindergartners created pages for a class book titled “When We Were Five.” To record their heights, the children measured how tall they were in “teddy bears.” Three different totem poles made from paper teddy bears stacked head to toe were taped to the wall over three consecutive days. On day one, each paper bear was five inches in height; on day two, each bear was three inches in height; and on day three, each bear was ten inches in height. The teacher asked the children to record their height three times, using each of the totem poles.

Observed investigations
During center time, children worked with partners and directly compared their heights. In most cases, they accurately counted how tall they were on days one and two. Because of the smaller size of the unit on day two, all the children were “more” teddy bears tall on the second day. On the third day, all the children went to the center and appeared to measure their heights, but few recorded the number of teddy bears. Often, their pages contained erasures or blank spaces for the third required measurement.

Problem conversations
Children explained their seemingly increased heights between days one and two with great delight: “I growed!” "My brother has been stretching me!” “I eat lots of vegetables!” Only two of the forty children mentioned the difference in bear size as a reason for the increase. When the teacher asked children why they did not record their third height, they generally refused to believe their own data. “It’s not a good one,” “You need other bears,” or “I don’t like it!” were the usual responses.

Follow-up activities
The teacher introduced other unit differences (for example, small cubes and big cubes to measure volume) in centers throughout the year.  By the end of the year, many children could identify the unit that they wanted to use and note the reason for the difference in measurements.

Connections to the Standards
Generally, young children have not developed an awareness of the need for standard units. Because this activity [is] directly connected to their heights, children easily believed that the second set of smaller bears accurately measured a rather amazing growth. When the third set of bears produced a much smaller number and one that they did not like, however, most children ignored the result. This beginning activity provided an initial experience and an impetus for the expectation to “measure with multiple copies of units of the same size” (NCTM 2000, p. 102).