Diary of a Worm
This is a measurement activity based on the picture book Diary of a Worm.
About this resource
This activity, As time goes by, is based on the picture book, Diary of a Worm (words by Doreen Cronin and illustrations by Harry Bliss).
Specific learning outcomes:
- Use the vocabulary associated with calendars to accurately talk about the duration and time between events.
- Read a calendar and express the time in standard units (day, week, month, year).
Diary of a Worm
Achievement objectives
GM2-1: Create and use appropriate units and devices to measure length, area, volume and capacity, weight (mass), turn (angle), temperature, and time.
GM2-2: Partition and/or combine like measures and communicate them, using numbers and units.
Description of mathematics
Time can be expressed in a number of different units based on the day (1 revolution of the planet).
Calendars are devices used to measure the year, dividing it into days, weeks, and months. Calendars are also used to record events in the natural world, such as tides, lunar cycles, and seasons.
Required materials
- Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
- old calendars or copies of calendar templates
- felts of different colours
Activity: As time goes by
A young worm records his observations and experiences in a diary over several months — his observations about his life and his thoughts about events that happen during the course of his life at school and at home with his family. It is a humorous worm's-eye view of the world.
1.
Prior to reading, explore your students’ understanding of time in the big units.
- Do they know the days of the week and the terms' fortnight, month, and season?
- Do they know the names of the months and how many days are in these units of month and week?
- What is a day? Is it always the same?
Show a calendar and discuss how it is organised.
2.
Share the book with your students. As you read the story, refer to the calendar shown earlier and ask:
- How many days have gone by since the worm’s last entry in his diary? Include the vocabulary of yesterday, tomorrow, week, and month.
3.
After reading, hand out calendars that can be purchased at discount stores, be from previous years, or be printed and copied from Word templates to small groups. Go back over the story, calling out the dates in order and asking the group to find and circle each Worm Diary date in one colour.
Ask students to take the calendars apart and staple them together end to end in order to form a long line from January to December. Discuss what they observe about the length of time the worm’s diary was kept. How many months, what fraction of the year?
4.
Ask students to get 4 different coloured felts and circle the dates for the beginning and ending of each term in one colour. Then use this colour to run a line through the weeks of each term. Look at the year and make some observations.
- Approximately how long is a term?
- Where is halfway through the year?
- How many weeks are holidays?
- Approximately how many weeks are in a year? How many days?
The calendars can then be folded up like accordions and brought out to discuss the fractions related to the year.
5.
Calendar timelines can be used to explore the statistics of birthdates within the class or across the school, as different colours are used for ages or genders.
- Can you find any trends about birthdates?
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