100m Sprints

Last week we watched clips of Usain Bolt winning a gold medal in the 100m sprint.  So on Friday we had a go ourselves.

First we had to carry on learning about measurement.  All that knowledge about measuring using non-standard units like cubes and rods came in very useful as we learned how to measure things in centimetres (or cm as we now know we can write it). 

Then we discovered that there are 100 cm on the big school rulers and we found out that 100cm is also known as 1 metre (1 m).  That came in really useful too because we worked out that we would need to put the big school ruler down 100 times to workout how far to run for the 100m race. 

After lunch we wandered up to the top field and began by estimating where we thought 100m would be.  It was really tricky. 

Luke had a great plan.  He used really big steps and counted to 100. 

 

There's Luke standing on the right of the picture.

It was an awesome plan Luke.  It turns out that Luke's stride was about 50cm.  (Hmmm - that's something we could have fun checking!)  When we used the 1m rulers to measure the distance, we discovered that it was only 50m to nearly the end of the field. 

We considered our options.  Isaac suggested that we head towards the bank on the other side and measure another 50m around the field.  Great suggestion Isaac.  That would have been a great solution to our problem.  Trouble is that the ground is rather boggy over that way.  Luke suggested putting a marker down and running straight back to the start line.  So that's what we did. 

Really, really fast.  Well ... not quite so fast as Usain Bolt but we think we did pretty well. 

I wonder just how far we can stride.  Lets find out ...