Scaling Minis

In Year 4 we have been looking at scaling up images and models.

We looked at these 2 Lego minis.

We thought about mathematical questions.
For example:
How many times larger is the big model than the smaller one?
How long is the small model?
How long is the big model?
What is the difference between the lengths of the two models?
How many small Lego minis equal the same length as one large Lego mini?

Here are some of our estimates of the lengths of the 2 cars:

The red writing is the actual length of each car.

We calculated that the smaller car is approximately 1/3 the scale of the larger car.

Next we wondered how this would compare to a real mini.  So Miss Whittaker let us use hers!

First we estimated the length of a real mini

Then we measured it.
We found out that Miss Whittaker's mini is 3.6m (360cm) long.
That's about 51 times longer than the small Lego mini!

We then used this information to help calculate what the width of Miss Whittaker's mini should be. We measured the small mini and it has a width of 3cm.  We multiplied this by 51 (using the same scale).  We think that the width of Miss Whittaker's mini is 153cm.
We are waiting to see if we are right!

Scaling with cars and... Frank!!!

This morning I took some car models and made a table with the cars. Here are some pictures of the cars. They are a dark red Ford Mustang GT, a red Ferrari Scuderia Spider, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle and a light yellow Ford Focus. As you can see the models are at different scale.

And here is a picture of the table. I measured the length of the models,then I researched the length of the real car and at the end I calculated the scale. 

Finally I decided to check what is the scale of Frank! (or Frankie). 

Frank is approximately 36 cm long (including tail).

I did some research and discovered that normally a real lion is about 3.3 metres. So Frank is 9 times smaller than a real lion.


P.S. Frank likes peppers.

Ratio with pattern blocks

Continuing with our work on scaling, we've been looking at different ratios. In 4B we've been representing different ratios with pattern blocks:

Meanwhile in 4G we represented a 2:1 ratio lots of different ways. What we were doing is scaling up the numbers (but obviously not the shapes):

Scaling up Cuisenaire rods

As part of our lessons on scaling, we've been exploring how Cuisenaire rods scale up - in three dimensions: height, length and width.

4B created shapes with several rods and then scaled them up.

Meanwhile 4G scaled up a single rod:

Here's a slideshow of our work: