March 2021 makes it one year since the start of the pandemic that thrust teachers into the remote learning world with little to no guidance or real-world experience. But you have been warriors and it makes my teacher’s heart happy to see how you all have thrived! You’re probably wondering what all that has to do with teaching your students about finding the area and the truth is, it doesn’t! I just really wanted to let you all know how much I admire your resilience before I jumped into the fun activities I’ve rounded up for finding the area in the classroom.
Now, to the topic at hand. Today, I wanted to share with you five of my favorite activities for finding the area with your students. Each activity requires some creativity from the kids whether getting crafty, finding shapes in weird places, or rolling dice and I promise it will be a good time. And you know I am always looking out for you, so I have included a freebie below to get you started!
The best thing about this activity? All you need is a roll of painter’s tape! Before the lesson begins, tape off tiles in your school in various shapes either on the walls or on the floor. Students will then estimate the total area before counting. For even more details, you can check out this post.
The Area Robots activity is a fun way to get students thinking about how finding the area works with shapes! They will create their own robots including the head, body, arms, and legs on grid paper then they will find the area for each body part. And since I just love this activity, you can grab it for free! No email required, just click this link.
Crown your students as Kings and Queens of finding the area! First, show your students how to divide their crown into different sections. Then, students will use different colors to decorate their crowns and find the area of each color used and label that on their crown. Have your students glue their crown to a sentence strip or strip of paper then staple the crowns to fit their head. They will love feeling like royalty! You can grab this activity plus many more in our Magic of Math Measurement unit.
It’s all fun and games until…well, it is all fun and games! Students can play a game of Toss it! Draw it! Total it! Here’s how it works: Students will practice making rectangles out of rows and columns. Using dice and their grid paper, students will roll the dice twice to find the number of rows and columns. If they roll a 2 and 3, they will make a rectangle out of 2 rows and 3 columns. Students color it in and label the area. You can also find this game in our Magic of Math Measurement unit!
One thing I know, kids are smitten with dinosaurs! Nothing ensures a great lesson, like incorporating things your students love! Here’s how students will make their area dinosaur: Students will cut out their dinosaur pieces and arrange them on a sheet of paper. Students will estimate the area of each piece then use square tiles to cover each part of the dinosaur. They can then record the estimate and the area on the provided table. The best thing about this activity? It is both printable and digital! You can grab it here.
Before you head out, don’t forget to scroll back up and grab the FREEBIE area robot activity! I hope you find these activities to be helpful when you’re ready to tackle finding the area in the classroom
Hey, y’all! My name is Amy Lemons and I am passionate about providing students with both engaging and effective standards-based Math and ELA lessons.
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