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Teacher Intern: Mary LePage Date: 3/11 Subject/ Topic: Area and Perimeter of Triangles
Grade Level: 6th
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.6.G.A.1
Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into
rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of
solving real-world and mathematical problems.
Students will be able to explain how the foldable in their interactive notebook explains the area of a
triangle formula.
Students will be able to find the area of a triangle using a formula.
I can find the area of a triangle using a formula.
I can explain the relationship between the area of a rectangle and the area of a triangle.
Students will be able to create a visual representation for the area formula of a triangle.
Development: [It may help to number your steps with corresponding times.]
Pass out foldable to all students. Its a square thats labeled 18cmx18cm
One the page in your groups, cut the foldable out, find the area of this figure and write it on the side
without the dotted line.
Together, class fold their triangles along the dotted line, What is the area of this triangle? Any ideas? Talk
in your groups for 10 seconds, then come back and well take answers.
What if we folded the rectangle in half (like a triangle). What would the area be then? How could we find
it?
Our area would be 1/2bh
Does any group know what our formula for the area of a triangle would be?
Whats the relationship between this square and the triangle. How big is the triangle in relationship to
square? Howd you know? What would our formula be?
Look at Toblerone box. This is a different type of triangle. In our notebook, we had a right triangle, here
we have a triangle that doesnt have right angles. Our formula is still the same!
What is the area of the end of this figure? These are the dimensions.. 3.5cm x 3cm x 21cm
A=200cm2
h=8cm
Sometimes we will know the area but we wont know one of the side lengths, thats when we have to figure
it out!
Its important to remember that the height might not always be inside the triangle. Show examples of
triangles where the height is outside the triangle.
Worldview Integration:
Discuss: Where do you see triangles in the world around you? Why would you need to know this? Why
does it matter? (construction, sewing, baking, cooking.)
Closure:
Turn to the person next to you and explain to them how you can find the area of a triangle. Tell them why
we use that formula.
Pass out hw page, students should complete 1-5 on the front and 1-5 on the back This worksheet needs to
be turned in for points. Well check the answers tomorrow.
In the end, we didnt find the area of the toblerone box. I decided we should save this for the day we do
surface area of triangular prisms.
We changed the dimensions from 18cm to 10 cm, because 18 is a large number to work with. Some
students really seemed to grasp the concept of why the area of a triangle is 1/2bh but some were still
unclear.
The next day we work through an assessment to see where students were after they had finished their
homework and were able to practice. There was a large range of student scores in the homeroom class.
Some students missed the formula altogether and therefore had a difficult time solving the rest of the
problem. Other students had the formula incorrect but then still answered the problem correctly.
Students worked on a common core sheets practice for hw and75% of them came back saying that when
we checked it they answered most questions correct and did not have questions. A few missed all of the
questions because they did not use the formula to solve the problems on their page.
We opened our interactive notebook to start the lesson and wrote the objective and then worked through
the foldable. In the future, I would consider working through and finishing the foldable (area of a rectangle
and area of a triangle) and then go on to write the objective and other information in the interactive
notebook. I think it would give them more time to kinesthetically feel that A=1/2bh and then go on to
write the objective which they already have understood.