When learning math, I have always found doing projects can help solidify ideas into everyones heads!
The idea of the house floor plan came to mind when I found out I was teaching area and perimeter because of an assignment that I did in my Inclusive Classrooms class – where we were asked to create our ideal future classroom.
I wanted this assignment to be an easy dive into understanding area and perimeter, with some rote repetition in understanding without being a drill-type worksheet. Every student was told they could only create furniture and rooms that were rectangles or could be broken into them. My example shows how I labelled each room, and added furniture, colour-coded each room so that when writing down the math it was easier to see – for example: I added two bedrooms and labelled them bedroom one and bedroom two, colouring them different colours for easy differentiation.
The students took this assignment and ran with it! They enjoyed using their imagination to create houses, they added rooms with inventive names or ideas – such as the “Lizard Room” or “VR Room.”
Core Competencies: Critical Thinking
Facet: They reflect on and assess their experiences, thinking, learning processes, work, and progress in relation to their purposes.
Profile: I can reflect on my work and experiences and tell others about something I learned.
First Peoples Principles of Learning: Learning involves patience and time.
Big Ideas:
- Closed shapes have area and perimeter that can be described, measured, and compared.(5)
Curricular Competencies:
- Model mathematics in contextualized experiences (5)
Content:
- Area measurement of squares and rectangles (5)
