Common Core Standards - Resource Page

Common Core Standards - Resource Page

The resources below have been created to assist teachers' understanding and to aid instruction of this standard.

Domain Standard: 2.MD.1 - Measure the length of an object by selecting and using appropriate tools such as rulers, yardsticks,
meter sticks, and measuring tapes.

Measurement and Data Questions to Focus Learning
Measure and estimate
lengths in standard units. What tools and units of measurement can be used to determine the length of an object? How do you decide which
measurement tool is appropriate to use when measuring various objects?

The length of an object can be measured with different tools and different units. Determining the length of objects
allows us to compare and quantify the world around us.

Student Friendly Objectives

Knowledge Targets
 I know length is the distance from one end of an object to another.
 I know numbers on a measurement tool are equally spaced.
 I know different tools for measuring length.
 I know length is measured in inches, feet, and yards.
 I know length is measured in centimeters and meters.

Reasoning Targets
 I know how long an inch is.
 I know how long a foot is.
 I know how long a yard is.
 I know how long a centimeter is.
 I know how long a meter is.
 I can select an appropriate tool to measure the length of an object.

Performance Targets

 I can use measurement tools to measure the length of an object to the nearest inch, foot, yard, centimeter, or meter.

Vocabulary January 2013 Page 1 of 3
CCSS – Mathematics – 2.MD.1

 length
 measure
 ruler
 yardstick
 meter stick
 measuring tape
 inch
 foot
 yard
 centimeter
 meter

Teacher Tips
Provided with permission from the Public Schools of North Carolina (May 2012)
http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/acre/standards/common-core-tools/#unmath

Second Graders build upon their non-standard measurement experiences in First Grade by measuring in standard units
for the first time. Using both customary (inches and feet) and metric (centimeters and meters) units, Second Graders
select an attribute to be measured (e.g., length of classroom), choose an appropriate unit of measurement (e.g.,
yardstick), and determine the number of units (e.g., yards). As teachers provide rich tasks that ask students to perform
real measurements, these foundational understandings of measurement are developed:
• Understand that larger units (e.g., yard) can be subdivided into equivalent units (e.g., inches) (partition).
• Understand that the same object or many objects of the same size such as paper clips can be repeatedly used to
determine the length of an object (iteration).
• Understand the relationship between the size of a unit and the number of units needed (compensatory principal).
Thus, the smaller the unit, the more units it will take to measure the selected attribute.
When Second Grade students are provided with opportunities to create and use a variety of rulers, they can connect
their understanding of non-standard units from First Grade to standard units in second grade.

By the end of Second Grade, students will have also learned specific measurements as it relates to feet, yards and
meters:
• There are 12 inches in a foot.
• There are 3 feet in a yard.
• There are 100 centimeters in a meter.

Vertical Progression January 2013 Page 2 of 3
CCSS – Mathematics – 2.MD.1

 3.MD.2 - Measure and estimate liquid volumes and masses of objects using standard units of grams (g), kilograms
(kg), and liters (l). (Excludes compound units such as cm3 and finding the geometric volume of a container.) Add,
subtract, multiply, or divide to solve one-step word problems involving masses or volumes that are given in the same
units, e.g., by using drawings (such as a beaker with a measurement scale) to represent the problem. (Excludes
multiplicative comparison problems involving notions of “times as much”’ see Glossary, Table 2.)

The above information and more can be accessed for free on the Wiki-Teacher website.
Direct link for this standard: 2.MD.1

CCSS – Mathematics – 2.MD.1 January 2013 Page 3 of 3