Area and Perimeter

Year 6 have been putting their outstanding maths investigation skills to work again this week.

First, they were asked about what they noticed about these two shapes. Year 6 quickly started to describe the shapes using the maths vocabulary of area and perimeter.

Then they were asked to investigate the shapes below.

Year 6 discovered that some shapes had the same area and perimeter; however, others did not. They also noticed that some shapes had a bigger area than perimeter and some had a bigger perimeter than area.

Year 6 were then challenged to create their own shapes that fitted the following conditions:

Can you draw a shape in which the area is numerically equal to its perimeter? And another?
Can you draw a shape in which the perimeter is numerically twice the area?
Can you draw a shape in which the area is numerically twice the perimeter?
Can you make the area of your shape go up but the perimeter go down?
Can you make the perimeter of your shape go up but the area go down?

After some investigation, Year 6 discovered systematic ways to create the shapes.

Everyone showed the crucial skills of: perseverance, systematic working, visualising, trial and improvement and generalising.