Geoboards Lesson - Area of Four

This lesson is found under Grades 3-4 Geoboards - Area of Four - Children use geoboards to make different shapes, each with an area of 4 square units.

Anticipatory Set:Complete/Review Do Now and homework

Learning Expectations:
· make shapes with a given area
· use a variety of methods for finding area
· discover that different shapes can have the same area

Activities:
Can you make different-looking Geoboard shapes that have the same area?
• With a partner, make at least 9 different Geoboard shapes, each with an area of 4 square units. Work together to decide how to measure the area of each shape.
• Record your shapes on geodot paper.
• Now choose 2 of your shapes to record on large geodot paper.

Have children take turns posting their larger drawings. Ask children to compare the posted shapes to see if any are congruent. Have them remove any duplicate shapes so that the posted solutions are all different.
Use prompts such as these to promote class discussion:
v How did you find new shapes?
v How did you make sure each shape had an area of 4 square units?
v For which shapes was finding area easy? For which shapes was it harder? Explain why.
v What do you notice when you look at the posted shapes?

Extending the Activity
1. Have children create categories by which to sort their posted shapes. Some examples might be number of sides, square corners/no square corners, parallel sides/no parallel sides.
2. Have children repeat the activity for shapes with areas of 3 or 5 square units.

Assessments:teacher observations, shapes, student-centered discussion

Materials/Tech Infusion:communicators, geoboards, laptops, Promethean board, Virtual Manipulative – geoboards

Accomodations/Modifications:* teacher designed groups* differentiated assignments/activities (centers to reach all levels) * extended time-classwork/assessments(when needed)* restructured homework assignments for both above level and below level students* use of manipulatives/graphic organizers* extension activities/alternative assignments* modified assessments - M/C, SCR, ECR, O-E* encouraging independence/student initiative* includes a rich variety of resources, media ideas, methods and tasks

· Homework: Math – open ended response question