Measuring Penny By Loreen Leedy

What You Actually Get With This Book

The book is straightforward. Penny is a dog. Her owner's family measures different objects around the house using standard units like inches, feet, and yards. That's pretty much the entire plot. The illustrations do the heavy lifting here. Each two-page spread shows Penny alongside items being measured, and the visual scale differences make the concepts click for kids who are just starting to grasp non-standard versus standard measurement. I've used this with first and second grade classrooms for years. The main practical value isn't in the story itself — it's in the follow-up activities you can build around it. The book ends with a section that suggests measuring things yourself, which is where the actual learning happens. Reading it aloud takes about ten minutes. The lesson plans attached to it can run a full week.

Measuring Penny By Loreen Leedy

Download options exist on a few educational sites, but the legitimate route is purchasing a copy through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or your local library. The book was published by Scholastic as part of the MathStart series. It's catalogued under early elementary math resources and fits squarely into grades K through 2 curriculum standards for measurement. There's no official free digital version from the publisher. Any site offering a PDF download is likely hosting it without authorization. I won't link to those. Instead, check your school district's resource portal or the Scholastic teacher page. Sometimes teachers already have copies sitting in the back of a classroom closet you can borrow.

How to Use It in Practice

Read the book once through without stopping. Let the kids see the illustrations. Then go back and pause at each measurement scene. Ask the students what unit is being used and why. The book uses inches for small objects, feet for medium ones, and yards for larger spaces. That progression is intentional and worth pointing out. After reading, hand out rulers and measuring tapes. Pick an object in the room and measure it together. Have students record their findings. The book recommends measuring toys, books, and furniture. I found that measuring the classroom itself — length, width, height — creates a much stronger connection. Kids remember the activity better when they're moving around instead of sitting at desks. One edge case I ran into repeatedly: students consistently confused inches and feet when switching between the two on the same worksheet. They'd measure something in inches, then immediately write "feet" next to the number without reconsidering. The workaround was to have them physically hold the ruler next to the object and say the unit out loud before writing anything down. It sounded silly but it cut the error rate significantly.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

The biggest mistake I see teachers make is treating this as a read-aloud only and moving on. The book is a starting point, not the whole lesson. If you don't follow up with hands-on measurement practice within the same week, the concepts don't stick. The pictures are helpful but they don't replace the tactile experience of running a tape measure across something real. Another issue: the book simplifies measurement to whole numbers. Real measuring involves fractions and half-inches. Kids who only learn from this book may struggle when they encounter rulers that show 1/4 and 1/2 marks. Plan a second lesson that introduces fractional measurements separately. Don't assume the transition will happen naturally. The illustrations sometimes show measurement results that aren't exact. A table might be shown as exactly 3 feet when in reality it's closer to 2 feet 11 inches. This can confuse careful students who measure the same type of object and get a different number. Address this head-on. Tell them the book rounded for clarity and that real measurements often land between the marks.

What It Doesn't Cover

This book does not address metric measurement at all. If your curriculum requires both imperial and metric systems, you'll need supplementary material. It also doesn't cover weight, volume, or time. The scope is strictly linear measurement using inches, feet, and yards. There are other MathStart books that handle weight and capacity if you want to continue the series. The reading level sits around 1st to 2nd grade. Older students who need remediation on measurement concepts might find it too babyish unless you frame it as a review tool rather than a new lesson. I've had fourth graders who were behind use it effectively, but only when I paired it with more challenging measurement problems afterward. The book runs approximately 32 pages. Standard trade paperback format. ISBN 978-0590457351 for the first edition. Later printings exist with minor illustration updates but the core content remains the same. Check your library or school supply list to see if an updated edition is recommended before buying your own copy.