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Estimate Lengths in Inches and Feet

Students develop mental benchmarks for inches and feet and use them to estimate the lengths of familiar objects before measuring. Students practice comparing estimates to actual measurements to refine their number sense.

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Estimate Lengths in Inches and Feet

Grade 2 · Measuring Length · question 1 of 3

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12 rungs. A star at the top.

A crayon is about blank long

How it is taught

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An estimate is a smart guess using a known size.

Use inches for short things and feet for tall things.

Read it: Estimate with a unit you know

How tall is a door? 1 meter is about 1 big step. A door is about 2 of those: about 2 m.

  1. Think of a unit you know: 1 meter, 1 centimeter, 1 inch or 1 foot.
  2. Picture it laid along the thing, again and again.
  3. Say about how many: a door is about 2 m.

You cannot always use a ruler, so you think of a unit you know.

1 meter is about a big step, 1 centimeter a fingernail's width, 1 inch a thumb's width, and 1 foot a long ruler.

Big things are measured in meters, feet or yards. Small things are measured in centimeters or inches.

An estimate is a careful guess with a unit you know.

Saying a door is 2 cm tall, because the number 2 sounds right.

2 cm is 2 fingernails. A door is about 2 big steps: 2 m.

1 foot is about the length of a long ruler. A bed is about 7 rulers long. About how many feet long is the bed? — 7. 7 rulers is about 7 feet, so the bed is about 7 feet.

Estimate the length of a new pencil

How long is this pencil? Let's estimate before we measure.

Here's a tip: your thumb is about one inch wide. That's our inch benchmark.

And a ruler is about one foot long — that's our foot benchmark.

A pencil is small, way shorter than a ruler. So we'll estimate in inches.

Now imagine laying thumb-widths along the pencil, end to end.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven thumb-widths.

So our estimate is about seven inches.

Let's check. Here's the pencil on a ruler.

Grade 2 · Use thumb and ruler benchmarks

Seven inches — our estimate matches!

Small things, like pencils, we measure in inches. Big things, like a door, we measure in feet.

Now you try. Read the length on this ruler. How long is it?

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics
Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal
1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now
Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

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