This week, we’ll be starting our measurement unit. We just finished our district testing on Friday, so we took an art break and spent about a half hour on Friday afternoon making Yardley.
Yardley is an idea I found on a teacher forum. My thanks to “lazydazy.”
Yardley, brought to you by one of my students:
Want to make your own Yardley? The entire activity, including telling the Yardley story and passing out supplies, took about 40 minutes. You will need the following:
- Construction paper
- Yard stick
- Red crayons
- Scissors
- Pencil (and I also have my students use felt-tip markers to trace their writing)
Yardley’s body is made from Sluggo art by Kristen Ankiewicz. His legs are made from enlarged versions of Trogdor’s strong arm. Thank you to Ms. Ankiewicz, who allowed us to use her art, and also suggested that Yardley might like an overseas friend, perhaps called the Metric Monster. Thank you for writing back to us!
Here’s the Tale of Yardley that I told my students.
Yardley was a creature who lived in a large city. Yardley enjoyed spending his time in the grass because he blended in so well. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of wide-open space in large cities, and one day Yardley was run over by a semi truck. He emerged unscathed, except that now he only has three feet.
Another interesting thing about Yardley is that when he spends time in the sun, he gets a very strange tanning pattern. He gets 12 stripes on each of his feet.
Here’s how ours turned out:
Finally, here’s the rubric I used to assess my students’ learning. It’s aligned to Washington State math standards.
Feel free to use Yardley in your classroom! Comments, credit, and suggestions are always appreciated!
Copyright 2008, Shannon Houghton
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