Area of Regular Plane Figures

The curriculum reinforcer, is a daily practice piece that is incorporated into almost every lesson to help my students to retain skills and conceptual understanding from earlier lessons. My strategy is to use Spiraled Review to help my students retain what they learned during the earlier part of the year. This will help me to keep mathematical concepts fresh in the students mind so that the knowledge of these concepts become a part of students' long term memories.

Students will complete a problem-solving race in teams. Each team will be given the same three area problems to solve and three lined sticky notes. After they have been provided with their materials, they will be given 8 minutes on the clock. Each team will work to solve the three problems. The solutions will have to be written on the lined sticky notes and when finished with one problem one group member must run to the board and stick their sticky note in their designated section. They must complete the problems in order one by one, not all at the same time. Once a group has placed their last sticky note, they will need to ring the bell. As long as all of their answers are correct, this group is the winner and will be able to get a prize from the craft closet. All other groups are to work until the 8 minutes has expired. Second and third place will also get a prize. Note: the teams can place only if all of their answers are correct. Each of the winning teams will present a problem during the instructional piece. 

For guided practice, I will provide an opportunity for students to ask specific questions that they may have concerning area. Often times, it is not a problem with knowing what to do with the formulas but rather how to calculate with decimal and fractional quantities. Either way, this will be a day that much of the guided practice will be dependent upon what my students say.

In today’s independent practice, my students will solve 5 problems that depict real-world scenarios. They will do so in an organizer that is a matrix that contains each of the names of the plane figures covered across the top. They will then have to fill in the word problem that matches the plane figure, provide the formula that goes with that plane figure, and solve that problem in the designated areas. They will also have to write a brief statement telling me what prompted them to match the problems up the way that they did.

We will close this lesson by presenting the problems that were completed during the independent practice. To do this, I will select 5 students (one for each of the five problems) to present their work, on the matrix, to the rest of the class using the document camera. During the presentation, the students should be able to present each section as displayed on the matrix ensuring the cover all of the following:

• What in the problem lead them to know which shape they were dealing with?
• What formula did they use?
• Tell the class step by step how they used the formula to solve the problem?
• Provide a complete answer to each problem.
• Provide a visual of the shape and its dimensions.

Homework: The students are to complete the matrix if they haven’t already done so. They are also to create five of their own word problems. One for each of the plane figures that we have covered.