How Track And Field Activities Help Kids Learn About Measurement

Track and field season is here and kids are training and competing for their schools. Younger children may not be competing yet, but they still may be attending track meets or doing some activities that are similar. This is a great time to take measurement outdoors.

Measurement Activities For Track And Field

Most of the events in track and field have to do with distance, length or height specifically. This is a good time to talk about bigger distances than that of a ruler or small tape measure. Of course, those lengths are also important to learn and practice.

On the track, there are shorter races and longer races. There are 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m etc. races. Some of those distances are pretty long for younger children so they may only try the shorter ones. For older students, they are able to go even beyond those distances.

For younger children, shorter distances can be used. These could be measured out with a trundle wheel in the school yard. Different races can then be held. it might be fun to add in some fun races like 3 legged races and potato sack races.

​For long jump and high jump, the distances jumped are measured. These distances are shorter, so they are measured with measuring tapes or on the high jump standards. If shot put is included, this would be measured by how far the shot put is thrown, so a measuring tape would be used for this as well. Field events are measured in meters and centimeters.

Time Measurement Outdoors

When doing track events or other races, not only is it fun to see who wins the race, but how fast they are. This is an opportunity to practice measuring time using stopwatches. Doing multiple races encourages kids to better their times and focus on their personal bests instead of just being first across the line. 

Team events can also be fun to do. Check out these outdoor measurement team activities that use standard measure. They can be fun to do and require just a few pieces of equipment.

Outdoor Measurement Activities For Area And Perimeter

Perimeter and area can be done with standard and non-standard measurement units. After doing some practice in the classroom with grids and units, it could be fun to get outdoors and try to use measuring tapes or trundle wheels to measure bigger areas or perimeters. If there's a fence surrounding the school yard, this could be measured in sections to figure out the perimeter. The area of the playground or the school field could be measured as well.

Measuring the perimeter of the school could also be done. It may require doing it in chunks and recording it on graph paper to figure out the actual perimeter as many schools are not rectangular.

Some Other Measurement Ideas

Measuring Tape Exploration: Provide the kids with measuring tapes and let them explore different objects in the outdoor environment. Encourage them to measure the length of benches, fences, tree branches, or any other objects they find interesting.

​Footstep Measurement: Have the kids measure distances using their footsteps as a unit of measurement. For example, challenge them to measure the length of a path by counting how many footsteps it takes to walk from one end to the other.

These are only a few different ideas for using measurement outdoors. Depending on your surroundings, there are many opportunities to use both standard and non-standard measurement outside to connect skills and concepts with the real world. Have some fun with your students while exploring some of these ideas.

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