Introduction To Area

    I have finally moved on from fractions and feel that I have a really good grasp on the subject. I definitely feel more comfortable being able to explain fractions to students now. This week, I have turned my attention to geometry. I've always had a hard time with this subject. Instead of diving right into geometry problems, I went to an intro into the subject. The subject of geometry begins in 3rd grade and it starts with an introduction about  the concept of area and how that just means how much a shape covers a particular space.
   I again used the website Khan Academy because they really simplify the subject and provide helpful problem sets at the end of each lesson. I noticed that the math problems presented in this intro were done on graph paper. This was helpful to visually see how much space the shape covers. There was no abstract shape with formulas that needed to be memorized, at least not at this particular level. A unit would be given and from that unit, I had to figure out what the area of the shape was. The problems were pretty simple. I just had to count the squares to find the area of the shape. An example is given below.

   After that, the lesson went into finding an area of a shape with partial square units. They showed how the area that was covered was half of the square and that two halves make a whole square unit, and that's how you had to figure out shapes with partial square units. An example is given below.

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-third-grade-math/3rd-geometry/cc-third-grade-area/v/introduction-to-area-and-unit-squares

These problems were really easy and quick to grasp for me. However, I know that when introducing this to students, it can get a little difficult to understand the concept, as I did when I was first learning about geometry. I really like the implementation of the graph paper to find the area for the different shapes because it's a good visual for students to use. I also found a great activity for students to have hands on approach to the subject. It involved using snap cube, which are brightly colored cubes that you can snap together and find the area of different shapes. The link to activity is below:

https://www.hand2mind.com/pdf/snap_cubes/42317_SC-GrK-2-Lssn9811.pdf

You could even cut out square units (as below), to complete the activity as well. 

 So you can put the students into groups, or individually, and have them figure out the area of the shapes using either grid or snap cubes. This is also a good way to show how different shapes can have the same area. I really liked this activity and hope to use it in the classroom to help introduce area and geometry. Next week, I will get further into the subject of geometry!