-Once the students are on board with the concepts, the teacher will pick partners using popsicle sticks out of a cup, and students will all receive a handout that will guide them through the website. They are able to complete the Area Builder worksheet together with their partner if they so choose, or independently if they’d prefer that.
-On the Area Builder website, there are essentially two parts that will be used. The first part of the site is the Explore. In this part, the students will be able to answer questions from the handout by manipulating the blocks to form different shapes with area and perimeter. The area and perimeter values are able to be calculated and displayed by the website, however, the students should write their answers down before viewing the values. This is going to determine which students have the correct understanding of the material.
-The second half of the website is the Game. This will be used as the assessment. There are different levels of difficulty for the game, so students who are having more trouble could start at level 1, and those who are having success should try for higher levels (The highest level attempted should probably level 3 or 4, and even those can be extreme). It should be indicated on the handout which level was selected, as well as the students score they received upon completion of the level. Most students should start at level 1 to ensure understanding of the concepts, and each student should at least attempt the first 2 levels and indicate their score.
-When the assessment portion of the lesson is over, introduce the students to the extended activity of creating a fence for farm animals. There can be a demonstration of an example if the teacher finds it necessary or that the students need more review. Once the assignment is explained, students are free to work independently across the room, design their fences, pick out and draw their farm, and find the values for area and perimeter. For larger animals, they need to make the fence bigger (have a larger farm), and vice versa.
-For homework, students will write up a paragraph about their farm animals and newly built fence. They will include vocab words such as area, perimeter, length, and width. They will also give the dimensions of the fence and describe why they made it the size that they did.
-As an adaptation for different learners, the teacher could include a supplementary handout that has all of the vocab words and definitions on it. The formula for area could also be included on the sheet. If some students are not really good at visually learning, they could work with the teachers in small groups using some hands on materials to work through problems (ex. blocks, whiteboards and markers).