Fencing Task

I love this fencing task much better than the first fencing task. This one really has the learner thinking deeply about the different options. I am going to use this task next year during my lessons. If there are any more tasks like these I would love to know about them.

1. The first thing I thought about this is that all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares. Therefore a 6 by 6 pen equals 36 sq. ft.

2. Once again, if we are going with the above note then a 4 by 4 rectangle will equal 16 sq. ft

3. This question is very hard to articulate but what I did was take the number given and divide by two. Then I guessed and checked so for number 2 when it asked about a rectangular fence using 16 feet of fence, I dived 16 by 2 and got 8. Then checked its area which would be 20 sq. feet. Then, I looked for other combinations that equal 16 feet.

I use Marcy Cook math tiles in my class which are similar to this type of activity.