In Covering and Surrounding, students continue to develop an understanding of perimeters and areas of rectangles and triangles, and are introduced to area and circumference of circles (Investigations 2, 3, and 5). Students also learn to use estimating and counting to find areas and perimeters of irregular figures. The overarching goal of this unit is to help students understand what it means to measure by studying two kinds of measurements: perimeter and area. Since students often do not know how each of these measures affects the other, students study them together to probe the relationship.

For an in-depth explanation of goals, specific questions to ask your students and examples of core concepts from the unit, go to Covering and Surrounding.

Online resources for Covering and Surrounding*

• Areas and perimeters of shapes
• Chairs (perimeter)
• Perimeter explorer
• Perimeter/area relationship
• Area of triangles
• Using string to estimate circumference of a circle
• Relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle
• Area of a circle

Other online resources

• General Homework Tips
• Homework examples from Covering and Surrounding

Note: These resources require Java in order to run.