Ever paint or wallpaper a room, or buy carpet? Or cut brownies to maximize the pieces with no dry edges? These are area and perimeter in action.
In Cowabunga, the kids wrapped “fences” around rectangular cow pastures – and learned two Party Fun Facts: The same fence can wrap around different areas (long skinny fields or chunky square fields), and the same area can rearrange different lengths of fence. Even a lot of grown-ups don’t know this!
To find the perimeter of a rectangle, just add its 4 sides: double the length plus double the width. Meanwhile, the area is just length times width. So if you have 40 feet of fence, what rectangle can you make that also has an area of 13?
Check out brainteasers like this below!
Can you figure out how to use 18 feet of fence to enclose 20 square feet of area?
A 5 x 4 fence.
Can you figure out how to use 28 feet of fence to enclose 48 square feet? How about 49 square feet?
A 6 x 8 fence. A 7 x 7 fence.
What's the greatest area you can enclose with 36 feet of fence?
81 square feet, since it will make a 9 x 9 square.
What's the greatest area you can enclose with 44 feet?
121 square feet, since it will make an 11 x 11 square.
