Body Ratios
Hello children and families. This is the first of two activities this week and it’s all about finding out some surprising relationships between the sizes of different parts of your body. If you have someone at home to help you with your learning, they could read this document first:
If you are doing this work by yourself, read the following.
Look at your foot. How long is it? Did you know there was a way to estimate the length of your foot without even looking at it? Does anyone know the secret?
Measure the length of your forearm (from the crease of your elbow to your wrist). Now compare this to the length (from heel to toe) of your foot. What do you notice? Are these measurements similar?
You may have a rule or tape measure to use so you can measure accurately in centimetres, but if you don’t have either of these things at home, you could use a non-standard unit to measure eg. lego blocks, felt tip pen lids.
These are some of the relationships for an average adult. How many of these are true for you? Investigate for yourself and find out which ones are true for you and which ones are not. How will you record what you find out?
- Total height is equivalent (equal) to 7 to 7 ½ heads tall
- Nose length is equivalent to first two digits of index finger
- Head is approximately 4 to 5 eyes wide
- Length of face is equal to length of hand
- Eyes are separated by one eye’s width
- Bottom of nose to outside corner of eye is equal to length of ear
- Length of foot is equal to length of forearm
- Arm span is equivalent to height
When you have done this, if you have some more time, here is an additional activity.
Sultan Kösen, a 37 year old Turkish man, holds the Guinness World Record for being the tallest living man. He is 251 centimetres tall. Based upon the relationships of one body part to another, can you estimate his arm span and height of his head? Can you use these measurements and your own body measurements to estimate his handspan and the length of his feet?