Area and Perimeter

This SMILE resource contains three packs of games, investigations, worksheets and practical activities supporting the teaching and learning of area and perimeter, from calculating area by counting squares to finding the formula for the area of a trapezium.

Area and Perimeter pack one contains fourteen work cards with a wide variety of activities covering finding areas by counting squares, finding the length of perimeters by counting, developing the formula for the area of a rectangle, drawing different shapes with a given perimeter, finding different shapes with a given area and finding the area of simple compound shapes.

Area and Perimeter pack two contains eleven work cards with activities requiring students to make shapes of a given size using pentominoes, investigate the area and perimeter of rectangles, find the area of a right-angled triangle, calculate the area of polygons drawn on square dotted paper, investigate different ways of shading half a square, find the area of a triangle, find the area of compound shapes made from rectangles and find the area of a parallelogram.

Area and Perimeter pack three contains eleven work cards with activities in which students investigate the connections between the area of a parallelogram and the area of a rectangle, the area of obtuse-angled triangles, further parallelogram problems, finding the area of a polygon, finding the area of a trapezium and calculating the area of irregular shapes.

SMILE (Secondary Mathematics Individualised Learning Experiment) was initially developed as a series of practical activities for secondary school students by practising teachers in the 1970s. It became a complete individualised scheme based around a network of activity cards and assessments. Related resources include answers to all of the cards and test books and answers.