Measuring using shoes

A selection of shoes from different members of the family (include some adults and some children’s sizes).

This activity will help to develop your child’s understanding of mathematical language, specifically vocabulary associated with measuring and length.

Use shoes as a measuring tool: challenge your child to have a guess at how many shoes long they are or you are! Using one of their shoes, they can then lie down and you can measure each other’s height using a shoe e.g. ‘You are six shoes long’. Engage in some problem-posing together and develop critical thinking skills by considering – ‘What would the answer be if we used mummy/daddy’s shoe instead? Would you be more shoes long, or less?’ Experiment and find out. 

Have fun measuring different things around the house or in the garden, using a shoe as the measure. What else could you use for measuring? Get your child to try measuring using other household objects. For an added challenge, your child can have a go at recording their findings. They could draw the object to be measured, and then write the number of shoes the length of the object was.