Perimeter and area: two math terms that pop up at every grade level, in some way or another, on standardized tests across the country, and most importantly in the Common Core Standards. While it makes sense that students need to understand the basic concepts of space, how do you help students connect it to themselves and make it an important and relevant part of their lives? A connection and investment in one's learning is important for meaningful learning but area and perimeter seem like such foreign and unimportant concepts for five to ten year olds.
A fantastic activity that I have used to help students make a connection to the idea of perimeter and area and the concept of physical space is a lesson I like to call "Be a Classroom Architect." I have a background in architectural history from my undergrad studies and have always been fascinated by places and spaces. In the spirit of "use what you know", I combined my love of architecture with my love teaching by asking my students to consider themselves architects for 40 minutes in the afternoon.
After explaining the job of an architect, I asked my students to become architects who are commissioned with a project to build the best classroom they could think of, complete with measurements of area and perimeter. This lesson comes well within our study of area and perimeter so students are able to fluently work with both concepts with little frustration.
As students begin to sketch out their plans on graph paper, they are actively engaging their higher level thinking skills. We come up with several different questions we think are important to consider as we design: what will these students need? Where will the students read, write, and practice math facts? The job of calculating perimeter and area were completed pretty quickly (area was calculated by counting squares in the graph paper at the second grade level) and then they could get down to the fun stuff. I saw water slides that were going to be used to study science and a ball pit designed to be the perfect reading area. After plans were completed, several of our "architects" presented their plans and explained their design choices.
I can't think of any lesson I love more for teaching area and perimeter than the Classroom Architect. Besides allowing students for being extremely creative in their designs, it also allows for differentiation between your students. If a student is struggling with multi-digit addition, they might have a simpler design than a student who loves to challenge him or herself with lots of walls to add up in their perimeter calculations. It's also super simple to set up: model, give them graphing paper and watch them go wild! I wish I had taken pictures to show my students so actively engaged but take my word for it, they love it!
