Lesson 1

Find Area with Pennies

Est. Class Sessions: 1

Summarizing the Lesson

Give each pair of students eight pennies and a blank sheet of paper. Instruct one student in each pair to make a shape on the paper using all the pennies. Explain that the coins must touch. If necessary, demonstrate how to make a shape with the coins touching. Instruct the other student to trace lightly with a pencil around the shape to create an outline, taking care not to move the coins. See Figure 1. Then have students reverse roles and repeat the process.

When student pairs have finished, tell students to remove the pennies and display the shapes they traced.

Conduct a class discussion to conclude the activity by asking the following questions:

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  • Are all of the figures you traced the same shape? (no)
  • Do all the shapes have about the same area? (yes) How do you know? (We all used eight pennies to make the shapes, so their areas are almost the same.)
  • When we measured clouds, we measured clouds of differing shapes and differing areas. What can we learn about the area of shapes from this activity? (In this activity the shapes are different but they have the same area. That tells us two different shapes can have the same area.)
ADVENTURE BOOK:
Student Activity Book:
Master:
Examples of traced shapes with pennies
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