Talking about the area of a circle...

Dear Families,

Today we started talking about the area of a circle... that's the space that covers a circle. And we started by talking about some vocabulary that we can use to describe the circle's area. Students made a foldable today that in which we defined segments, semicircles, sectors, and quadrants of circles. 

For homework tonight, students are just supposed to share their foldable with you and get your signature on the page. Then they are finishing a small project where they are making the area in a circle's quadrant one color (or pattern) and the area outside the circle's quadrant a different color or area. This is to help us anchor on the idea that we are examining the amount of space between a circle's center and its circumference.

We are examining how many radius-squares (squares that are the same size as a circle's radius) can fit inside a circle. Students have four different colors of radius squares and we are in the middle of cutting them apart to physically fit them into the circle.

Tomorrow we will formalize a model-building project that we started today and will find that we can fit 3 radius squares... and a little more into the circle. That means that we can fit... well... pi radius squares into it! But that is tomorrow. For today we just started seeing that about three of those radius squares can fit into a circle.

Thanks!

Brian MacNevin