Area and Perimeter Activity+

A good activity for practising the skills of measuring with a ruler, calculating area and width of rectangles.

Activity 1: Children initially worked in groups of 5 to make a rectangle with four bodies and use the square slabs to count length and width. Lots of opportunity to use vocabulary or length, width, area and perimeter which we had previously learnt in classroom. Large square slabs allowed for smaller numbers to be multiplied to calculate area.

Activity 2: Children worked in small groups of 2/3 to make rectangles with found sticks. Plenty discussion about the need for straight sticks, matching length and matching width. The children were asked to then measure the length and width with their rulers to the nearest cm (can discuss rounding). Again they calculated the area and the perimeter. Good challenge for some as they had large numbers to multiply and lots of chat about how we could do this - partitioning/ formal method/repeated addition.