Proof of Reading

Applying Area and Perimeter to Real Life Situations

The video for this unit highlighted real life application when it comes to mathematical concepts. The teacher for this class, we can obviously tell, has great care for her students and is truly concerned about whether or not her students truly understand the material they are being taught. When she felt her students only had a base understanding of area and perimeter, she comments that she went back to the third grade standards to refresh their understanding of the concepts. I feel this was a very smart move on her part. Math is a subject that builds, therefore, if students are confused by sixth grade, their confusion is only going to continue to build, by going back to the basics, the teacher is allowing the students to build up their foundational knowledge on perimeter and area, not only helping them succeed in their sixth grade unit, but helping them succeed in their future math classes as well. This teacher presents students with a real world application "challenge" problem of a 10x1 table. The challenge for the students is to find a table that has the same perimeter as the 10x1 table, but that has a larger area for food to be spread out upon. Students work to find the largest area they can get with keeping the perimeter 11 in small groups and then come back together as a class. Instead of simply going over the answer, the teacher has the students kinesthetically engage with the problem as well by having each student represent a part of the perimeter. The teacher gives each student a piece of paper (22 in total) to represent the perimeter of the table- 10+1+10+1=22. The students then all collaborate and work together to create the table with the largest surface areas with their bodies and papers and then the smallest area with their bodies and papers, keeping perimeter equal throughout it all. I was extremely impressed with this activity, I feel math and kinesthetic learning does not go hand in hand very often but she made it work in such an effective way that I am sure the children absolutely loved! This is definitely an activity I will use and reflect back on when I am teaching my own future students.