Measuring the Statue of Liberty

Hi! Future Ticia 2025, and I’m coming back to this ancient post, which was a great lesson. It was an amazing geography lesson AND a fun math lesson, that I super loved (and future Ticia is realizing I still do not have a math landing page, I need to fix that). This was all part of our New York Unit which nests into our overall United States Geography. Yep, that’s right, you could use this as part of so many different lessons.

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Let’s talk about the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty has an interesting history.

The government of France gave it to the United States as a celebration of their friendship. We had to raise the money for the pedestal for it to stand on, and there was a lot of discussion on whether or not we could even afford to do that, and it took time to raise the money, and it was slowly raised and put together.

It became one of the features the United States was known for, and was one of the first sights immigrants saw for years when Ellis Island was the first location people came to when coming here.

Now, because I love to find some good library books, I’ve looked to see what my library has, and tomorrow when I head out to run a few errands, I want to go by and grab these, so I haven’t read them yet, because these weren’t what the library had 14 years ago.

• The Statue of Liberty– Told as if you’re on a field trip to see the Statue of Liberty, this gives the history of the statue
• The Statue of Liberty– An easy read book on the famous landmark
• Let Liberty Rise!– The story of how funds were raised to build the pedestal for the statue
• What is the Statue of Liberty?– This is written more at a 3rd grade and more-in-depth, this is more for kids writing their first research paper
• The Story of the Statue of Liberty– this book focuses on the creation of the statue
• Liberty rising: the story of the Statue of Liberty– another book on the story of how it was made
• Her Right Foot– talking about the story the statue portrays, I’m really looking forward to reading THIS book, because it’s so different

Measuring the Statue of Liberty Lesson

For this lesson, I wanted to do something different. We could color a picture, but that’s boring, and the kids would learn nothing. We could try and carve something, but that wouldn’t really give any scope of how big the statue is.

Instead, I decided to call back to our Whales lesson.

Just like we did for whales, we measured out how big the statue of liberty was.  We measured several different parts of her using information I got from the Statue of Liberty information site.  It is fascinating to see how big she is. 

I wish I could say the kids were suitable impressed, but there were more interested at that particular instant in running around like mad men and trying their very best to see who could be the silliest.

I am sure this news totally shocks you.

So, for me, this activity was spent with lots of, “No, look over here!  No really, if you pay attention,n we’ll get done very quickly.”  At which point, I imagined all sorts of ways I could glue them to the floor.  Which probably would not have been a good idea.

Instead, I’ll leave you with what we measured (Past Ticia 2011 had made this a printable, I need to update it and figure out how I want to upload it to the blog).

• head to toe
• hand
• index finger
• eye
• nose
• right arm
• mouth
• tablet
• foundation

More Great Geography STEM lessons

We had all sorts of great STEM lessons.

• desert biome lesson and craft
• How geysers erupt
• Why do we float in the Great Salt Lake?
• Florida ocean layers science lesson
• How does ocean temperature affect a ship’s movement?

• Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “New York City (New York, USA), Statue of Liberty — 2012 — 6819” / CC BY-SA 4.0For print products: Dietmar Rabich / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_City_(New_York,USA),_Statue_of_Liberty—2012–_6819.jpg / https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/