Grade Levels: 3-5

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Intro to Area Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Intro to Area, and supports the standard of applying the area and perimeter formulas for rectangles in real-world and mathematical problems. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display an image of an empty room, like this one:

Ask students:

  • How might you figure out how much space you have for furniture? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign Intro to Area Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about finding area while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Produce a home makeover show where you explain how to calculate the area of a room to redesign. 
  • Make-a-Map: Create a concept map showing two different ways to find the area of a shape made of multiple rectangles.
  • Creative Coding: Code a math problem involving finding the area of a rectangular shape. Challenge a classmate to solve. 

More to Explore 

Area Builder Game: Create shapes using colorful blocks and explore the perimeter and area.

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments