Using a Ruler
Program:Community orientation and participation ESL literacy programs |
CLB Literacy Phase :Foundation Phase Phase I
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Where:Bow Valley College, Calgary, Alberta |
Who:Full-time LINC |
Target Audience:Adult |
This activity gives learners an opportunity to practice drawing lines with a ruler. They learn how to hold the ruler with their fingers and thumb spanning the ruler in order to hold the ruler firmly in place. They also learn to press their pencil against the ruler so that the ruler can be used to draw a line. This is a new skill for many so the activity provides three worksheets which get progressively more challenging.
In order to keep it interesting, learners create a couple pieces of art with their rulers.
This activity teaches learners how to use a ruler to draw lines. Many learners in Foundation Phase and Phase I have never had the opportunity to use a ruler and do not know how. Although ruler use is not mentioned in the outcomes of the CLB Literacy document, it is a useful scholastic skill to have as well as a precursor to using a ruler for measurement.
Ruler use is a skill that needs to be developed over a few days. On the first day, learners practice drawing lines from dot to dot on a teacher made worksheet (connect dots. pdf). Learners need to be shown how to hold the ruler and press their pencil against it. They need to be shown how to span their fingers and thumb so that the ruler doesn't slip. This first activity gives them practice at doing this.
The second activity is another worksheet (star.pdf) and here learners are to use their pencil and ruler to draw lines from each dot to the other four dots on the circle.At the end the teacher can help them see the star and they can colour it one colour and colour the rest another colour.
The final activity creates a beautiful line drawing. This handout is called spiralgraph.pdf. Here the learner draws lines from the central dot to all the dots on the edge of the page with one coloured pencil. The learner then repeats this with a different colour for the second dot.
My learners loved using rulers. Although I knew they'd need support learning to use rulers, I had not anticipated all the things we assume. It had not really occurred to me that drawing lines with a ruler is easier if the ruler is perpendicular to the page but I quickly figured that one out.
It was a fun activity and I want to think of more drawings they can do with rulers!
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Using a Ruler | ESL Literacy Network
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