Here’s A Free Christmas Themed Area and Perimeter Activity
This free Christmas themed area and perimeter activity has children placing Gum Drops in squares to help children visualize this concept.
Today is day five of our Seven Days of Christmas Math Printables. You can see what other fun math printables we have here, or check out our list of 50 Math Games and Activites Here.
The free printable can be found at the END of this post. Click on the blue “get your free printable here” button.
There used to be a courtyard right outside my classroom. And when our area unit would come around, we would take advantage of it. Armed with yardsticks and chalk, we would march on out and draw squares on the concrete.
With pink and blue chalky squares drawn systematically across the courtyard, we could then figure out the area and perimeter of our beloved courtyard. It was a great real-life problem that we all enjoyed solving!!
I highly recommend starting with that type of activity, but if it is not possible….here is another hands-on way to work on area and perimeter.
Prep- Work For Area and Perimeter Activity
First, print off Ginger Bread Houses on card stock paper, cut out, and laminate.
Next, print off the recording sheet on regular copy paper.
Finally, provide a pencil and Gum Drops and you are ready to go.
Scotch Thermal Laminating Pouches, 8.9 x 11.4-Inches, 3 mil thick, 100-Pack (TP3854-100)
Ferrara Candy Assorted Giant Gum Drops (1Lb)Neenah Astrobrights Premium Color Card Stock, 65 lb, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 250 Sheets, Stardust White
How to Use Area and Perimeter Activity
This activity is very easy to do, but its hands on nature is a great way for children to visualize the area and create a better understanding of it.
Finding Area:
To begin, children place Gum Drops on the grids of one of the houses. They then count up the number of Gum Drops used to fill in the grid. As children are counting up the Gum Drops, this is a great time to work on skip counting and the formula for area.
Start by asking simple questions like…..
- Is there another way to count the Gum Drops?
- Could we skip count the Gum Drops?
- Could we use multiplication to figure out the number of Gum Drops?
Once they are able to answer these questions, it is time to show them the formula for finding the area. Explain to your kiddos that most of the time people are finding the area to a large space. It would be time consuming to draw squares in this large area and then count those square. The easiest way to find the area is to multiply the length times the width. This will tell us how many squares are in the rectangle or square.
Now that all of that has been explained, children write the equation on the recording sheet to show how they solved for the area.
Finding Perimeter
After your students have figured out area, it is time to proceed with figuring out the perimeter. This is simply counting the outside of the square or rectangle. There is one concept you have to make sure your little ones understand.
They can not just count the Gum Drops on the outside and be done. They must count the Gum Drop on each side.
In the picture above, if the child just counted the Gum Drops around the rectangle, they would get a perimeter of 10….but this isn’t right. What our kiddos have to do is count the Gum Drop on each side.
There are four on the top and four at the bottom, and there are three Gum Drops on each side.
Therefore the perimeter is 14……4 +4 + 3 +3 = 14.
And once that has been figured out, all there is left to do is put on the recording sheet!!
I hope your kiddos enjoy this hands-on way of working on area and perimeter.
Area-and-Perimeter-ChristmasYou’ve Got This
Rachel
Perimeter, Area, and Volume: A Monster Book of DimensionsFifth Grade Math Volume 6: Exploring Symmetry, Angle Properties, Units of Measure, Area, Perimeter and Area of Irregular PolygonsArea and PerimeterEAI Education Color Tile Fraction Puzzles: Area and Perimeter Gr. 4+
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This fun project that includes math and writing. It can be used to practice multiplying fractions or simplified for just area and perimeter.
Or grab this fun game where children are creating rectangles that have a specific area to win the game. 
