Constant Perimeter, Changing Area - Exploration of area and perimeter

Word Document/Activity can be found here:

This two day activity is meant to be an introductory activity to area and perimeter.  Students area highly encouraged to build rectangles that have a set perimeter of 24.  They will naturally gravitate toward area of 24 (trying to make 8 x 3 rectangles, for example) and quickly realize that this is the not the meaning of perimeter.  Students try to come up with a system to ensure that they have all possible rectangle combinations and are encouraged to share their ideas.  Feel free to stop class in the middle of the lesson to highlight a students strategy as a suggestion to other students!

This lesson has really helped my students relate to the idea of rectangle area meaning length x width as well as the perimeter meaning 2 lengths plus 2 widths.  

The geoboard part of the lesson serves as an introductory to the idea that triangles can be turned into parallelograms and lending itself well to that formula discovery.  I usually put a "triangle discovery" activity together as well but its copyright protected and, thus, can't be published here (Connected Math, Covering and Surrounding, Investigation 6.1 and 6.2).