Mathematics Lesson Plan

Title: Dream House; Finding Area of a Squares and Rectangles

Grade: 2nd and 3rd Grade
Materials:
Graph paper
Crayons or colored pencils
Smart board
Michigan GLCEs:
M.UN.03.06 Use square units in calculating area by covering the
region and counting the number of square units.
M.UN.03.05 Know the definition of area and perimeter and calculate
the perimeter of a square and rectangle given whole number side
lengths
Connection: 30 seconds
We worked on finding the area of quadrilaterals yesterday. To find area we use the
equation: length x width. Today we will use this knowledge to find the area of
rooms in a dream house.
Learning Target: 1 minute
I can create a dream house using squares and rectangles, and find the area of my
dream house using length x width.
Teaching Point: 5 minutes
Use the graph to show how many quadrilaterals can be put together. And the
area can be found by finding the area of each small quadrilateral.
Explain that length x width can only be used to find the area of a square or
rectangle.
Use the following Smart Board activity to show students how to find the
areas of different sized squares and rectangles.
http://exchange.smarttech.com/details.html?id=8df3d0d0-44a8-4cb0-852350108661ad31
Guided: 5 minutes
Continue on the Smart Board. Have students come up and teach the class
how they would figure out the area of different sized squares and rectangles.
Have students explain why they cant use length x width to find the area of a
shape other than squares and rectangles.

 Have students use their white boards to help answer the following questions
as a class:
http://files.havefunteaching.com/fun-activities/common-coreactivities/common-core-activity-3.md.7.pdf
Independent: 15-20 minutes
Students will use graph paper and colored pencils.
They will create the floor plan for a dream house using only squares and
rectangles.
They will then find the area of each room in their dream house and write the
multiplication sentence and answer inside each room.
Students can get creative and label each room with a fun name.
Encourage students to make their dram house colorful.
Midpoint: Observe students and see what they might need to be reminded during
the independent work time:
Teacher will say, I see a lot of you are creating shapes that are not squares or
rectangles. This will not work for this activity since you need to find the area of all
the rooms in your dream house.
Extension: Students who finish early will start math stations. Students who find
this activity too easy will find the area of the entire house by adding up the areas of
all the rooms.
Simplification: Students will count all the squares inside each room to check if the
area is correct. Students can draw smaller rooms so the multiplication equations
have smaller numbers.
Formative Assessment: Collect students dream houses and determine whether
students can determine the area of squares and rectangles using the l x w formula.
SUMMARY/DISCUSSION2 minutes
Teacher will ask:
How did you find the area of each room?
What equation helped you find the area?
How did you find the area of your entire dream house? (Have two students come up and
share)
Have students share their work by turning and talking.
Today we created dream houses and calculated the area of the individual rooms, as well as the
area of the entire house. I want you to think about how area can be found by calculating length x
width, because we will be finding the area of shaded portions of squares and rectangles.