How to Teach Area and Perimeter Virtually

Teaching area and perimeter is hard enough in person. Teaching it virtually adds another level of challenge that could make you want to scream.

Today I’m going to walk you through some ideas for teaching area and perimeter virtually. All the way through from introducing the skill to assessing it.

The examples I show will be mostly Google related but you can create this in other platforms.

Introducing Area and Perimeter

To introduce area and perimeter you want to first start by choosing one skill to teach at a time. I usually start with area because you can relate it to multiplication which is one of the skills we do just before area and perimeter.

Start by creating slides with the definitions. You might choose to break up the definition into different slides depending on how much content you want to teach your students.

Just like you would on an anchor chart in the classroom, add an example of how to solve a problem.

On a regular paper anchor chart, it’s best practice to have students complete it with you.

To do this with virtual anchor charts, create interactive slides where students can try out what you have taught in the definition and example slides. You can have them type in answer boxes or have them manipulate things you’ve included on the slide.

What’s great about this is kids can turn in the anchor chart slides so you can see how they did with the introduction of area and perimeter.

You might want to even try interactive anchor charts in the classroom for absent students or for struggling kids that need more practice.

Practicing Area and Perimeter

After introducing area and perimeter virtually the kids will need some practice time for each skill independently. Task cards are a great way to practice and can easily be done virtually.

Creating task card slides is pretty simple. They don’t need to be fancy. Put one problem on each slide with a text box so students can type in their answers.

If you use Google Slides, another option is to provide them a recording sheet where they can type their answers. This makes it easier for teacher checking and grading.

I wrote a blog post about how to use task cards and technology to differentiate in math. You can check that out here.

Reviewing Area and Perimeter

Next up is reviewing area and perimeter before the assessment. To make it fun, I create a digital scavenger hunt game in Google Forms.

The object of the game is to solve problems and collect letters to a mystery phrase.

It doesn’t have to be fancy. Just create some area and perimeter math problems and add them to Google Forms. Figure out a mystery phrase. The number of letters in the mystery phrase will be the number of problems they solve.

Add a letter from the mystery phrase for the kids to receive after they solve each problem. They’ll record the letters and type in the mystery phrase!

Assessing Area and Perimeter

Next up is the assessment. One option is to create another Google Form with area and perimeter questions. Make sure to turn on the Make a Quiz option in settings so that you can include an answer key.

Then all you have to do is download the spreadsheet with all of their grades!

Another option for testing area and perimeter is Boom Cards. Boom cards are self-checking task cards that give kids (and the teacher) immediate feedback. If you have a subscription you can download reports.

I wrote a post about 5 reasons you should be using boom cards here.

Do you want to sample some Boom Cards? Sign up below and I’ll send them your way!