Grow a Giraffe

Our Dollar Tree Grow-a-Giraffe actually grew!! He was mailed to us in an awesome care package from Kenna's GG (that's Great Grandma).
We started off by measuring the giraffe from head to foot with a ruler. We recorded his length on paper, and then plunked our friend in a bowl of water. We talked about what might happen to him in the water, and Kenna answered with the incredibly insightful, "He'll get wet and wrinkly." 

Then, every day for a week, we pulled him out, dried him off, and remeasured him.  We used 1 inch "unit blocks" to reinforce the measuring.  He grew from 4 inches to 9 inches in 6 days! WOW! Kenna was really impressed with him and his magical growing.

This was a simple and fun way to introduce measuring to Kenna. We haven't done ANYTHING with a ruler until now, and this was superfun. She inspected the ruler very carefully, noting all of the lines and numbers.  Rulers are cool because they help you measure, of course, but they also help you count, compare size, and show growth. They also help you decide "does it fit?" I can't wait to do more activities with our ruler.

I is for inches:  Inches went along perfectly with our letter of the week, I.  We read the book Inch By Inch, by Leoninni, and measured a bunch of other small things with our unit cubes, and then our ruler. 

I have to say that I am ridiculously surprised that our giraffe grew! One of his legs was a little stunted, but the overall effect was great. Now we are going to take him out of the water and measure him every day for a week as he shrinks! (they have these grow-a-thingys in the A.C.Moore dollar bins right now. I spotted a mermaid and a princess, and a dragon, but I resisted- since, really- how many grow-a-thingys does one family need? :)