P4CW Hands On Learning: Exploring Area

This week in maths, our focus was on area, and we began by exploring it using non standard units. Instead of rulers or squared paper, we used large buttons and Smarties to measure the surface area of different a rectangle .

Working in teams made the activity lively and collaborative, but we quickly discovered something important: everyones answers were different. The reason became obvious once we compared our materials—each group’s buttons and Smarties were slightly different sizes. That meant the “units” we were using weren’t consistent, so our measurements couldn’t match.

This realisation helped us understand why mathematicians use standard units like square centimetres and square metres. Without standardisation, measurements can’t be compared or trusted.

Even so, exploring area with buttons and Smarties was fun, interactive and thought provoking. It gave us a concrete experience that made the importance of standard units much clearer.