options: Statistics & Probability: students learn to analyze and produce data distributions, and build understanding of univariate and bivariate data. They learn to interpret data, make statistical inferences, justify conclusions, understand rules of probability, and use probability to make decisions.

Number & Operations in Base Ten: students learn to work with the base-ten system and build place value understanding.

Counting & Cardinality: students learn to know number names and the count sequence, count to tell the number of objects, and compare numbers.

Number Systems and Quantity: students learn to understand the complex number system and reason quantitatively.

Ratios & Proportional Relationships: students learn to recognize, describe, represent, and reason with ratios, rates, proportional relationships, and percent.

Functions: students learn to define, use, and evaluate functions to model relationships between quantities.

Modeling: students learn to choose and use appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze real-world empirical situations, improve decisions, and report on their conclusions and the reasoning behind them.

Geometry: students learn to classify geometric figures by their properties, and understand and compare the relationships between them. Students develop and use formulas to compute lengths, areas, and volumes, and they use transformations to generate new shapes and compare existing ones. Geometry can be studied with and without coordinates.

Number & Operations - Fractions: students learn to understand fractions as numbers and may work with them using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Operations & Algebra: students learn to solve problems using algebraic thinking and operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They may learn to identify and explain arithmetic patterns, evaluate or manipulate numerical expressions, and reason with equations and inequalities.

Measurement & Data: students learn to work with data and measure attributes such as time, money, length, area, and volume. They may learn to compare measurements to operations and convert between different units of measure.
problem_activity: Narrative
The purpose of this activity is for students to compare shapes by covering them with pattern blocks. Students experience tiling as a way to see which shape covers the most space. There are several ways to tile the shapes, but it may prove most useful to use the same units, such as triangles. The rectangle can only be fully tiled with square pattern blocks. To compare shapes B and C, students will need to notice that the rectangle and parallelogram can be made the same length, but the square pattern blocks used to tile the rectangle are taller than the blocks used to tile the parallelogram.
[IMG]
[IMG]
The work here prepares students to tile figures with square tiles in the next lesson and to think of area in terms of square units.
MLR8 Discussion Supports.
Synthesis: Create a visual display of shapes A, B, and C. As students discuss their comparisons, annotate the display with their observations. For example, when comparing shape B to C, write “same length, but taller.”
Advances: Speaking, Listening
Action and Expression: Develop Expression and Communication.
Synthesis: Identify connections between strategies that result in the same outcomes but use differing approaches.
Supports accessibility for: Conceptual Processing
Required Materials
Materials to Gather
Pattern blocks
Scissors
Materials to Copy
Pattern Blocks to Compare Shapes
Required Preparation
Each group of 2 needs at least 2 hexagons and trapezoids,  4 squares and rhombuses, and 8 triangles.
Launch
Groups of 2
Give each student a copy of the blackline master.
Give each group pattern blocks.
Display the first two shapes (the hexagon and the heart-shaped octagon).
“What do you notice? What do you wonder?” (Students may notice: Both shapes could be made with pattern blocks. The second shape looks like the first shape, but it’s been bent. Students may wonder: Which shape covers more space? Which shape is larger?)
1 minute: quiet think time
Share and record responses.
“Which shape covers more space? How do you know?” (We can cover them with the same blocks, so they cover the same amount of space.)
2 minutes: partner discussion
Share and record responses.
Activity
“Let's continue comparing shapes. Work with your partner to decide which of these shapes covers the most space. Use pattern blocks if they are helpful.”
5 minutes: partner work time
Monitor for students who:
use pattern blocks to determine which shape covers the most space
notice that shape B and C would be the same length if one of the ends of B was moved over, but C covers more space because it is taller
Student Facing
Your teacher will give you handouts with some shapes on them.
Use pattern blocks to decide which shape covers the most space. Be ready to explain your reasoning.
[IMG]
Student Response
Teachers with a valid work email address can
click here to register or sign in
for free access to Student Response.
Activity Synthesis
Ask selected students to share strategies for tiling each shape with pattern blocks and how the tiling helped them decide which shape covers the most space.
“When we decide which shape covers the most space, we are talking about the area of a shape. We can think about the
area as the amount of space covered by a shape.”
“Which of these shapes has the greatest area?” (C takes up the most space, so it has the greatest area.)


correct_option_index: 10