A Handy Measure

How many hands tall are you? Challenge kids to measure themselves the way the 19th century Oklahoma horse traders measured their prize horses (can they guess how many hands tall a horse had to be?). There's some background information about this historical context and scholars discuss this traditional form of measurement before trying it out themselves. There is an excellent worksheet here to organize their discoveries as pairs measure their own hand width (how does it compare to the average?) and how many hands tall their partner is. They also look at a horse diagram to determine if it measures up to the standard 14.2 hands.