Today students worked in collaborative groups to solve this multi-step problem dealing with perimeter:
(problem courtesy of Dr. Patty Smith)
Jacob just got a little puppy from the Animal Shelter and named him Ben. The vet said that Ben needs a pen with an area of 24 square feet. Jacob needs to put a fence around Ben’s pen but doesn't have much money to buy the fencing, which is on sale for $8.00 per foot. Ben’s pen will be in the shape of a rectangle. He needs to get that pen made quickly as Ben is chewing up all the furniture inside the house!
What does Jacob need to do?
(problem courtesy of Dr. Patty Smith)
Jacob just got a little puppy from the Animal Shelter and named him Ben. The vet said that Ben needs a pen with an area of 24 square feet. Jacob needs to put a fence around Ben’s pen but doesn't have much money to buy the fencing, which is on sale for $8.00 per foot. Ben’s pen will be in the shape of a rectangle. He needs to get that pen made quickly as Ben is chewing up all the furniture inside the house!
What does Jacob need to do?
1. Use the color tiles to model all the different pens you could make that are 24 square feet and rectangles.
2. Sketch each pen on graph paper and write the dimensions.
3. Figure out how many feet of fence you will need for each pen.
4. Compute the cost for the fence for each pen.
5. Which pen will cost you the least amount of money for fencing?
6. Which pen will cost you the most money?
Students used 24 square inch tiles and graph paper to work out this problem. As a class, all possible pens were modeled (four total) by students, and the total amount of fencing and money needed were calculated correctly.
I was especially proud of Dylan and Anastasia and want to give them a shout-out! They discovered a short-cut to creating the pens all by themselves and then were awesome enough to share with their classmates. Ben will be in his pen in no time thanks to the awesome thinkers in my classroom!!
I was especially proud of Dylan and Anastasia and want to give them a shout-out! They discovered a short-cut to creating the pens all by themselves and then were awesome enough to share with their classmates. Ben will be in his pen in no time thanks to the awesome thinkers in my classroom!!