And it's so easy… just whip out some index cards for groups of kids and have them find different combinations of cards to make different shapes. It hits on so much…the relationship between area and perimeter, finding missing measurements, additive area, etc. I think I originally got some version of this idea from a Mailbox Tips magazine and then have adapted it over the years to meet my needs. This index card activity is another one of my favorite activities for the older kiddos. More Perimeter and Area Practice Irregular Shapes This same project also includes a DIGITAL VERSION for more flexibility. They were over the moon about these little hats and the project, and we had a blast with it.
This is where the hard hats came into play! This year, I decided to get them all hard hats from Oriental Trading, since they are tasked with being city planners. They start by laying it all out, then they “zoom in” on the buildings in separate guided tasks. In this math project, the students have to build their own city. Since this is such a great real-life concept to apply this skill to, I keep it going with my perimeter and area math project. At the end, I always ask my students to figure out how they could seat 12, 16, 24, etc. Talk about engagement! The book also has great extension activities. By the end, they are YELLING at the characters in the story trying to tell them how to arrange the chairs. I have used this lesson with kids in grades 3-5, and I've never had a kid NOT love it and learn something from it. There is a great free lesson at Beacon Learning ( click here) that walks you through teaching it and also provides you with a worksheet similar to my anchor chart above. The kids all have 8 tiles (the amount of tables they have) that they can manipulate as we read the story and then record it on our paper.
They try several different arrangements in the hilarious story, and all along the way, we chart the seating arrangements and compare the area and perimeter. The book is all about how a family has a big spaghetti dinner and has to figure out how to seat all of the people invited with only 2 chairs. I LOVE it! We use Spaghetti and Meatballs for All by Marilyn Burns (Click the title to see my affiliate link on Amazon!).
Then we did one of my all time favorite perimeter and area lessons. We needed to review how to find perimeter and area of both regular irregular shapes, which is why there are two examples. It was a few days before we could really dive in, so we started our review by making this perimeter and area anchor chart. They spotted the hard hats and were hooked! They couldn't wait to come to school and see what we were going to be doing with those hard hats. Before we began our perimeter and area unit this year, I sent out this little teaser to my students via ClassDojo… This was really a review for my kids, so it was fun to pull out some of the more inquiry-based activities and watch them go to town. Calculating the Perimeter and Area of Rectangles from Side Measurements (Smaller Whole Numbers) ( 41 views this week) Area and Perimeter of Parallelograms (whole number base range 1-9) ( 14 views this week) Calculating the Perimeter and Area of Triangles Using Heron's Formula for the Area.We finished our perimeter and area unit several weeks ago (right before fractions!), but I never got around to posting some of the engaging activities we did.