Math Activities

Since I am interested in being a math teacher, I am taking a class that is dedicated to teaching aspects of math. While most of the students in the class do not have a math education major, math is the primary focus of the class. One idea in the class was to break down larger math concepts into little pieces so that big picture ideas are easier to learn.

One activity that made this lesson easier to understand was finding the are of irregular shapes on a grid sheet of paper. We had to find the area of the shape without using common formulas for triangles or using other complex issues. As a result, we made observations that lead to us getting the area correct. I believe that using this method in classroom would really benefit the kids, as they would begin to make connections understanding the area of triangles without ever learning the A= 1/2bh formula. In the lesson, just like in class, we would encourage our students to design their own shape on the grid and get the creators of the shapes and their classmates to find the areas of the assembled shapes.