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Students explore the big idea: Shapes can have the same perimeter, but very different areas.
Students create at least five different rectangles with 16m of perimeter.
They organize their information and look for a pattern between the shape’s dimensions and its area.
Students create three ways to use three of their different rectangles. I give an Alien Zoo example.
Students will inductively determine the formula for the area of a triangle. Then we apply it to other, more complex shapes.
Using examples, students will attempt to deduce the formula for the area of a triangle.
We reveal the rule.
Students attempt to decompose more complex shapes into triangles.
Students will experiment with sticky notes to find the area of a circle and, along the way, discover pi!
First, students will cut up post-it notes, trying to see how many they can fit inside of a circle.
Then, you can reveal that (if you had perfect precision) you could fit exactly π post-its into the circle.
Students will determine how the diameter and circumference of circles are related.
First, students make a guess about how many times they’d need to go across a circle in order to equal the distance around.
Next, they’ll measure across printouts of famous circles.
Then, using string, they’ll measure around.
Now, students will look for a relationship between the diameter and circumference.
We reveal that the relationship is π.
I explain a bit more about π.