They say the fastest way to a 4th grader's brain is through his stomach. For real, that's what they say...at least that's what they should say! We opened our Perimeter and Area unit by way of the stomach. We engaged in a lesson that challenged the students to use food to build arrays to demonstrate area, and measure to perimeter.
The objective of our lesson, entitled "Around and All Over," was to build arrays (out of Cheez-Its) from given dimensions and place pretzels around the array. The Cheez-Its allowed the students to visualize square units, and fostered student confidence when applying their prior knowledge of building arrays. (Establishing this confidence proved very imperative to their success when exploring formula application.) The kiddos removed the pretzel border from their arrays and lined them up end-to-end. They then measured the total length of the pretzels. This gave the students the ability to conceptualize perimeter, and make concrete connections to formulas.
Exploring perimeter and area with non-threatening, and EDIBLE, materials was fun and engaging for the kiddos. The activity allowed for a good foundation for content understanding, which we were able to build on throughout the lesson! Oh, and of course they got to eat their manipulatives!
- Learning with food!
- Learning with food.
Below you will find a link to the student sheet that was used in correlation with the lesson.
https://goo.gl/cJzsxp
https://goo.gl/cJzsxp
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