Thursday, January 23, 2014

Calculating Area with Footsteps

My 3rd grader has been learning about area & perimeter for some time. She understands it but retention is an issue for her. 

I came up with a great visual for her- she is a very visual learner.

Here's the visual: A for Area; A for Art- area is the space within the picture frame where the art goes.

P is for Perimeter; P is Picture Frame. The perimeter is like a picture frame; the distance around the edges. 

That seemed to help but we needed more. 

I found this pin on Pinterest about finding the area of your footstep. Here's the link to the website:

We tried it and she loved it! What I didn't realize was that to solve the area, you need to break the footprint up into many shapes. So with each foot, she practices about 20 area problems, which uses multiplication and adding. Love it!



She finished her feet & asked if she could do other family members today. 



Sometimes you really can find a gem of an idea on Pinterest. 

No comments:

Post a Comment