Understanding Perimeter

Today I taught a lesson on understanding perimeter. I had asked my PSMT on Monday if I could start teaching as soon as possible and she said "How about perimeter and area tomorrow?" and I must have made a face and said something, so she said Wednesday was fine. But she was then in a meeting with our site facilitator anyways and only caught the tail end. She still had some good feedback to use.

If this were Livejournal I could use a LJ-cut tag and put my lesson there, so it's not too spammy. Did this work?

Brant Polkowski
Understanding Perimeter
3rd Grade

Standards/Objectives
Nevada Standard D.3-5 - Use physical models to explain he relationship between concepts and procedures
Objective: Students will use standard units to find the perimeter of a shape.

Materials/Technology Resources
Graph paper (handed out by an on-task student), personal white boards and markers (students already have), Scrabble board, pieces of Lego, pieces of Dungeons & Dragons square floor tiles, poster boards with class examples and assessment ones to work through.
TW call on on-task students to help in collecting and distributing materials.

Procedures
Opener: TW discuss family members' upcoming visit and mother's pool, draw it on the board, and then discuss how to prevent young nephews from falling in, leading into perimeter. Teacher will define the concept of perimeter and explain the concept with students copying class diagrams onto their graph paper. TW lead class through finding the perimeter in standard units (squares)

Class will find the perimeter of a Scrabble board.

TW pass out floor tiles to four groups and have students draw tiles on their paper. They will then find the perimeter of the tiles and hand back. TW hand out Lego tiles next and repeat.

Students will create their own shape and exchange their graph paper with another student and have that student find the perimeter of the object that they created.

Teacher will then hold up second whiteboard and show the two additional shapes. Students will be assessed using white boards on comprehension of perimeter concept before handing out Envisions worksheets to work through perimeter problems.

Extension: How would we find the perimeter of the model house I brought in? What do we notice about the perimeter of a square?

Closure: We will be working more with perimeter and its cousin area in the next few days. We won't always be using square shapes.

Student Assessment
Teacher will assess student comprehension by showing several shapes to the entire class. TW use 2 square-based shapes shown on the back of foamcore. Students will then find the perimeters of the shapes and hold up their whiteboards with the answers. TW monitor for comprehension.