Area and Perimeter

We made lots of different quadrilaterals with toothpicks today.  

We also looked at making right angle triangles (verified by using the Pythagorean theorem).

The challenge of today was to make a rectangle with the perimeter of 12 toothpicks.  There were a few different answers!

We predicted whether the area would be the same since the perimeter was the same, and then calculated to prove that the areas are all different.  The more square shaped (the closer the value of length and width) the more area the shape held.

The next challenge was to choose one of the original rectangles with perimeter 12, and try to reduce the perimeter while increasing the area.  We also tried to increase the perimeter and reduce the area.  

The top rectangle has a smaller perimeter and a bigger area than the rectangle with perimeter of 12 shown below it.