6th Grade Math Lesson
Turf & Tile: Area of Triangles and Special Quadrilaterals
Shared by A STEM Educator
6th Grade3-Act Math45 min
Learning Objective
Students will derive and apply area formulas for triangles, parallelograms, and trapezoids by decomposing and composing shapes, and will calculate total area of composite irregular polygons in real-world contexts.
Lesson Overview
Students use the real-world context of designing custom athletic turf fields and irregular tile floors to discover and apply area formulas for triangles, parallelograms, trapezoids, and composite figures.
Materials
- Printed graph-paper handouts (1 cm grid)
- Rulers
- Scissors
- Pencils and colored markers
- Whiteboard and markers
- Basic calculators
- Tape
- Printed Act 2 clue cards (one set per pair)
Scaffolded Task Progression
1Task 1
Warm-Up — Rectangle to Triangle: On your grid paper, draw a rectangle that is 6 units wide and 4 units tall. Draw a diagonal from the bottom-left corner to the top-right corner. Cut along the diagonal. What do you notice about the two pieces? What is the area of each triangle?
[ Interactive graph / diagram, available in the full lesson ]
[ Interactive graph / diagram, available in the full lesson ]
2Task 2
Estimation Challenge: The triangular end zone on the stadium blueprint fits inside a rectangle. Without calculating, estimate what fraction of the rectangle's area the triangle covers. Record: Too Low / Best Guess / Too High. Explain your reasoning in one sentence.
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