Our current math unit is exploring Area. With it being the beginning of our unit, below you will find some resources that may help your child practice their skills at home.
Lesson 1 Resource: Kahn Academy Video Resource
This is a short instructional video that explains area. Parents can watch the video with their child to better understand how area works. After watching, families can ask their child to explain how counting squares and multiplying side lengths determine the area of a rectangle. This also encourages children to verbally explain their reasoning which will help strengthen their conceptual understanding.
Lesson 2 Resource: National Geographic Animals
This resource supports all intelligences listed for this lesson. It is not directly related to mathematical concepts being discussed, however it aligns with Naturalist by learning about animals and their habitats. It aligns with the visual-spatial intelligence by including pictures and visual explanations. And it supports Intrapersonal because students can explain what they know about animals and habitats and relate it to area, and the habitat they have to construct.
Lesson 3 Resource: Additive Property of Area Video
This video explains the additive property of area, which shows that when a rectangle is divided into smaller rectangles, the total area is the sum of the areas of the smaller parts. Parents can watch the video with their child to see how larger shapes can be divided into smaller rectangles to determine the total area of the entire rectangle. Parents can then ask their child to draw a rectangle on paper and divide it into two smaller rectangles, similar to the “Combo-Garden’ activity in class. The child can then calculate the area of each section and add the two areas together to find the total area. This helps reinforce the classroom concept that the area of a large rectangle can be found by adding the areas of its smaller parts, which supports the idea of the distributive property, and area models.