Mrs. Becker's Area and Perimeter Activity: Skitch

Thanks goes to Mrs. Becker for this idea. Not only was it a good idea, but it looks tasty too! Here she took a creative activity and integrated it naturally with her class set of iPads. The portion completed with the devices is where she can assess how well the students grasped the skill. Could she use a quiz to accomplish the same task? Yes, but that wouldn't be as much fun now would it? Also, it provides them with some technology skills that are applicable to showing work in any subject area, and even outside of the classroom.

There are numerous times that I use Skitch to ask or answer questions through email. Just the other day, I wanted to trade my car to an auto dealer. He asked me if I could show any defects so that he can properly assess the value of my vehicle. I used skitch to not only take the pictures, but to draw the arrows and annotate the issues I saw. These are real life skills.

In this lesson, Mrs. Becker had students arrange Cheez-It crackers to form a polygon. Then the students had to label the area and perimeter of the shape. I used to have kids sketch it on a piece of paper to prove their work. With an iPod or iPad, students can take a picture of the real evidence and label it in the same amount of time. Not only that, but the kids can email it so I don't have to stuff my bag full of papers that will eventually get scrunched on the bottom. :) (Yes, I'm a messy teacher.)

Thanks again, Mrs. Becker! This is great!