Grade 3/Relationship between perimeter and area (Same perimeter: different area)
Things to think about for next year’s project:
- Book Laura Drawbaugh (Parks Dept.) to come and speak about the progress of reconstruction of Little Red Square. This is a two-year project, so we potentially could repeat this lesson next year.
- Ask Laura to print out large one inch chart paper for drawings (30″ wide, unlimited length). It’s also thicker paper.
- Maybe do “measure your foot” TERC lesson after this project (but have the students take the string and create different quadrilaterals using the same perimeter). Then they could create their own “T-Chart” individually and reflect on the data regarding the relationship between same perimeter and different area. This will reinforce the concept on an independent level with each student, and provide further practice. Most importantly, it will help make every student accountable for the learning because it’s an individual lesson. Teachers can base formative assessment on this. It is also a “Low floor, high ceiling” problem because every student has a different size foot, and will be working with their own perimeter, and reflections are open-ended.
Math Notes:
- Jessie had the idea of doing the multi-digit addition unit first so students will more easily be able to add up the area amounts.
- Elaine thought that the project of adding up area amounts gave the students a “need to know” the math that was coming up in the next unit (multi-digit addition).
- Both of these are valid points and maybe we can discuss this next year. Another thought might be for each class to try a different approach next year to see what works best.
- We all thought that this “messy” project uncovered unexpected math and was worthwhile. The major conceptual math that we saw happening was a foreshadowing to multiplication arrays, which the classes will be studying in-depth in the spring. Both Elaine and Jessie felt that it would be worthwhile for students to reflect on their work on this project after delving into multiplication because it is a great example of arrays having to do with a context and an application.
- Other math included fractions (partial squares), data & Statistics (collecting perimeter and finding the class median of the data), standard measurement, multi-digit addition, creating a scale drawing.
