Classroom Story: Toy parade Dianne Golemac and Jill Cheeseman In collecting some lesson ideas for exploring measurement with young children Jill hit upon the thought of generating a series of lessons around Soft Toys. Often soft toys are favourites with 5-6 year-olds so she began to develop a lesson plan. Although it looked okay on paper she was keen to know what would happen in practice. The first lesson plan involved a toy parade and is shown in Figure 1. Toy Parade Aims: Preparation Ask children to bring a soft toy/teddy to school for a Teddy Bears’ Picnic. (This might be fruit and snack time or lunch time in the playground.) Introduction Ask the children to introduce their toys to their friends in small groups of about 4 students. Have members of each group look for similarities and differences in their toys. Activity  Group according to colour  Group according to other characteristics, e.g., whether the legs are jointed, whether they have button eyes etc.  Line up according to height  Line up according to weight/mass Materials  Soft toys  Tape measures  Rulers  Balance scales  Camera (optional)  Paper and drawing materials  To have children compare length.  To arrange a “parade” of toys ordered according to their height.  To have children record their findings by drawing/ photographing and labelling their results.  To contextualize measurement of length in an engaging way.