P5 continued to learn more about area and perimeter this week. We thought it was time we challenged ourselves to apply our skills in real life challenges. We discussed jobs that may use area and perimeter as part of Developing the Young Workforce (DYW). We understand that the builders and architects that have been involved in building our new nursery will have used lots of skills in area and perimeter too!

Miss Hamilton set the class two NRich problem solving challenges. First, we thought carefully about the problem and then discussed how we could begin to solve it. After much discussion and evaluating, we finally reached our solution! Both groups shared their learning with one another. We discovered that:

• Squares and rectangles can have the same perimeter and area.
• Squares and rectangles can have the same perimeter but different areas.
• Squares and rectangles can have the same area but different perimeters.

Well done to our amazing problem solvers! 💪 We love a challenge!

Through the Window challenged us to figure out why glass windows and their frames had been priced the way they had. We had to work backwards to guess, check and improve our possible price solutions after figuring out the area and perimeter. Phew! Lots of collaboration and discussion meant we were successful in finding the answers:

• Each square of glass was £10 per m2.
• Each length of frame was £5 per m.

Our second challenge was called Numerically Equal. We had to investigate whether it was possible for a square to have an equal perimeter and area.  Again, we worked logically together to guess, check and improve. It didn’t take too long before we found that a square with sides 4cm would work! We increased the challenge and checked all other possible solutions before seeing if a rectangle could also have equal perimeter and area. As a group we found a solution: a rectangle with sides 6cm x 3cm! One pupil even realised the rectangle’s length was twice the breadth. Very impressive.