Finding the Area of a Rectangle

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Instruct your students to gather on the floor.
• Place the blocks in a 4 x 5 format on the mat.
• Ask your students to tell you the area of the rectangle by counting the blocks.
• After that, ask your students if they can calculate the area of the rectangle using another method that is quicker.
• Explain to your students that they can multiply the number of the blocks in the row by the number of blocks in the column to get the answer.
• Ask your students to skip count by 4's 5 times to prove that multiplying the numbers will give them the same answer that they would get by counting the blocks.
• Repeat the above steps using different numbers.

Guided Practice

• Instruct your students to draw the rectangles with the following sides: 4 by 2, 3 by 7, 9 by 4, 7 by 8, and 4 by 7.
• Instruct your students to first calculate the area by counting the squares inside the rectangle. After that, instruct your students to calculate the area by multiplying.
• Let your students know that each square represents one unit.
• Go over the answers with your students as a class.

Independent working time

• Ask your students to complete the Finding Area: Level 1 worksheet.
• Ask your students to draw the squares inside each rectangle as well.
• Go over the worksheet as a class.