Summer project (1 of 3)

by

The Minnesota State Fair is a fabulous event (Twelve days of fun ending Labor Day!). Rachel and I love the Fair, and we have passed this love along to our children.

Griffin must have been thinking about the wonders of the State Fair as summer slowly (oh, so slowly!) unfolded on our fair state. He asked a question at breakfast one recent morning.

Griffin (eight years old): How tall is the Giant Slide?

Me: Good question. I would guess…40 feet. What’s your guess?

G: 45 feet.

OK. That’s a mistake. We should have written our guesses down privately to avoid influencing each other. Oh well.

Me: Let’s look it up.

Google returns nothing useful. It does return this awesome video, though, which we watch together.

Me: I found lots of information mentioning the Giant Slide, but nothing on its height.

G: Measure it yourself, then!

Me: Good idea. How should we do that?

G: We’re gonna need a lot of tape measures put together.

This has been a summer project for us. In the next post, I report on an intermediate activity we did. Our results will follow that.

Follow Talking Math With Your Kids on WordPress.com