The purpose of this activity is for students to partition the inches on a ruler into fourths, or quarters of an inch, using what they know about fractions on a number line. Students then use the ruler to measure objects in the classroom to the nearest quarter inch. In the Activity Synthesis, students practice reading the measurements as fractions greater than 1 and as mixed numbers. They also discuss how measuring in fourths of an inch is different than measuring in half inches.

Students will use the rulers they partition in the next activity.

• Invite previously identified students to share an object and its length in quarter inches.
• For each measurement, ask the class to repeat the measurement as a fraction greater than 1 and as a mixed number or whole number.
• As needed, explain that when measuring to the nearest quarter inch, the result can be a whole number of inches. For example, if an object's length is closer to 2 inches than to , its length to the nearest quarter inch is 2 inches (or  inches).
• “What’s different about measuring lengths in quarter inches and measuring in half inches?” (With quarter inches, it was more likely for the length of the object to match or be close to a mark on the ruler than to fall between two marks. There were also more marks to use to measure.)

The purpose of this activity is for students to practice measuring objects in the classroom using their partitioned rulers and find objects of certain fractional lengths. Because the specified lengths are in halves and fourths of an inch, students may use both rulers. As students realize that all lengths could be measured with the rulers showing fourths of an inch, they may opt to use only one ruler.

When students decide to measure in halves or fourths of an inch based on the length of an object, they attend to precision (MP6).

• Invite 3–4 students to share an object and the length of the object. Record each measurement and ask the class to say it together.
• “How did you decide which ruler to use—the one partitioned in half inches or the one partitioned into fourth or quarter inches?” (For lengths that are whole numbers or show  inch, we used the ruler partitioned into halves. For lengths that show , , or , we used the ruler partitioned into fourths. We used only the ruler partitioned into fourths because we can see whole numbers, halves, and fourths in it.)
• Consider asking: “Was there a particular measurement that was easy to find because a lot of objects have that length? Were there any that were hard to find?”