Bright Ideas {Playing Around with Perimeter}

Hey y'all, I am super excited to be joining a bunch of awesome bloggers in the Bright Ideas Blog Hop!  I thought I'd share with you (mostly through pictures) a few fun activities we've done lately to explore the concept of perimeter.

Last year was our first year with Common Core and regrettably, I didn't do as great of a job teaching 3.MD.8 in a conceptual way as I could have.  But with some ideas from a talented teammate and some of my own creativity, we are now masters of perimeter!  We started by exploring with pattern blocks and creating ponds.

Then we had fun incorporating literacy into our math learning.  This super cute book (with a real world application) by Marilyn Burns is all about preparing for a family get together.  Mrs. Comfort plans to have 8 tables of 4 so that there is enough seating for the anticipated 32 guests but as people arrive, they begin to rearrange the tables.  Unfortunately, then there isn't enough seating for everyone.  So after lots of moving the tables around, they must end up in the original arrangement to be able to accommodate everyone.

So of course we had to honor the "Doctor" in some way and my kiddos had a blast creating these cool cats! I love how cute they turned out and it was a fun way to practice perimeter.

Finally, we've started to compare figures with the same perimeter but different area.  We read another great book called Chickens on the Move and students modeled the coops with paperclips.

Ready for another amazing idea?  Check out the fabulous Hilary over at Rockin' Teacher Materials!  She's sharing her awesome book bin organization system!  

 
Looking for more bright ideas?

Check out K-2 Bright Ideas:

An InLinkz Link-up

Check out 3-5 Bright Ideas:

An InLinkz Link-up