Digital Thermometer
As glass thermometer aren't as widely used as they once were (due to safety issues) it is important that pupils learn how to use digital thermometers (as well as being a requirement of the national curriculum).
This thermometer plugs straight into a notebook and records the temperature to a number of decimal places over time. It also produces a graph of the results it collected.
This would be a great way of applying prior knowledge of decimal places to understand what they might look like when reading temperature. You could also apply knowledge of rounding to a real life situation and mention to the pupils that they have to round the temperature because normally, decimals aren't used.
Pupils could track the temperature outside or even inside the classroom and discuss why the temperature was different at certain times during the day.
You could introduce pupils to charts and graphs. As you could relate it back to something the pupils understand and can experience themselves, they may find the topic easier to understand and make sense of. Just by looking at the chart on the notebook, pupils can decide which is the hottest liquid from a selection or find the hottest room in the school.
This thermometer plugs straight into a notebook and records the temperature to a number of decimal places over time. It also produces a graph of the results it collected.
This would be a great way of applying prior knowledge of decimal places to understand what they might look like when reading temperature. You could also apply knowledge of rounding to a real life situation and mention to the pupils that they have to round the temperature because normally, decimals aren't used.
Pupils could track the temperature outside or even inside the classroom and discuss why the temperature was different at certain times during the day.
You could introduce pupils to charts and graphs. As you could relate it back to something the pupils understand and can experience themselves, they may find the topic easier to understand and make sense of. Just by looking at the chart on the notebook, pupils can decide which is the hottest liquid from a selection or find the hottest room in the school.