Math Story : Introduction To Area
The Secret Door
“Uncle Math is designing various advanced gadgets. He wants to save the galaxy using them. But he won’t succeed because I will take them away from him. Haha! I am Uncle Bad. I will make everyone sad. Haha!” says Uncle Bad proudly.
Despite tasting defeat several times, Uncle Bad has not learnt his lesson. Now he wants to make Uncle Math weak by taking away his superpower which is his gadgets. Will he be able to win this time? Let us find out.
Uncle Math is stressed. He received the information about Uncle Bad planning to take away his gadgets from Mr Messenger. “What do I do now?” he thinks. “Do not worry, Uncle! We will not let your hard work just get wasted this way”, say Triho and Squarho. But how will they stop Uncle Bad this time?
“Idea! Let us hide the gadgets. If the gadgets are hidden, what will Uncle Bad take with him”, says Triho with a smile. “Hide? Where will you hide them? Uncle Bad knows every corner of Samper town. He will find them by hook or crook”, says Uncle Math. “Not this time”, says Triho. What is he planning?
“We will hide the gadgets in such a place which nobody will even guess”, says Triho. Unable to understand anything, Uncle Math
and Squaro ask, “But where exactly?” Triho bursts into laughter and says, “Come on, follow me”, and he runs inside the Math Lab.
“We will hide the gadgets here. Here! Behind this door. We will cover this door such that it looks like a part of the wall”, says Triho.
Amazed by the idea, Uncle Math finally sees a ray of hope. He is relieved that now his gadgets will be safe. Soon Triho starts
explaining how they will execute his plan.
“We will cover the door. The door and the tiles on the wall should be exactly the same. Once the door is ready, we will keep all the gadgets inside this door and lock it. It will not be eye catchy and will protect the gadgets”, he says.
Soon they start their execution.
“Come on now, let us get the tiles to cover it”, says Triho. “But how many tiles will we need?” questions Squarho. Unable to come up with a solution, they look towards Uncle Math for help.
“Haha! No fear when I am here. To find out how many tiles will we need to cover the door, we need to find the area”, says Uncle Math. “Area? Sounds like an alien word”, says Squarho. “Area is the amount of surface an object covers up”, explains Uncle Math. The kids are puzzled still.
Highlighting the door, Uncle Math says, “Look at the door, how much space is it taking? This inside portion will tell us about this. If I draw a square grid on it resembling the tiles, we can find out”, he says and marks a square grid on the door.
“Looking at the square grid, can you tell me how much surface is the door occupying?” questions Uncle Math. “Oh yes! 1, 2, 3, 4…. Ah, 24. The door takes up 24 grid squares”, says Triho. He just counted all the square grids. So smart.
“Correct answer”, announces Uncle Math. “This simply means that the area of our rectangular door is 24. Since we used square grids to measure the area, we write it as 24 square units”, he adds. “Wow! But can we also use rectangles or any other shapes to measure the area instead of squares?” questions Squarho.
“No dear! Since a square is equal from all sides, it can cover any shape evenly. So we always use square tiles or grids to measure the area”, explains Uncle Math.
“Oh! That is correct! Now I understand everything. So we need 24 tiles in total to cover the door. But counting the tiles to find the area every time might be confusing and time taking. Do we have any shortcuts?” asks Triho. “Oh yes! We do have a shortcut”, says Uncle Math.
“To find the area, we just counted the squares our door covered right? Our rectangular door is 6 squares tall and 4 squares broad. So to find the total squares, What can I do?” asks Uncle Math. “Multiply!” says Triho excitedly. “Exactly. So 4 times 6 is 24. Thus we know that 24 tiles will be needed to cover the door”, explains Uncle Math.
“So in simple words, I can say, area of the rectangle is the product of its length units and breadth units”, says Uncle Math. “Wow! This is so simple”, says Squarho.
“Phew! We are done!” says Triho. “Wow! I can’t even guess that there might a door behind this”, says Uncle Math. All of them are finally happy.
Thud! Suddenly they hear a loud slam. “They are here”, says Squarho.
Uncle Bad enters and starts attacking all three of them. “Where are the gadgets?” he asks Uncle Math. “I do not have any gadgets”, says Uncle Math fearlessly. None of them reveals about the gadgets.
This frustrates Uncle Bad. “The gadgets must be somewhere here itself. Search every room and corner of the house. I want the gadgets by hook or crook”, he orders. His army immediately gets into action.
After a while, the army gets back. “No trace of the gadgets”, says Atriho Boss. “Argghh! Fine, go and search for them in other houses. I am sure he must have hidden them in Samper town only”, says Uncle Bad. “Do not consider this as your victory. I will be back soon”, He leaves to join the search with his army.
“Haha! We made it. We made it!” says Uncle Math. He is elated and starts jumping out of joy.
“This is their safest place”, says Uncle Math and thanks Triho. A bigger challenge, some great critical thinking, area to the rescue,
and an amazing display of bravery. What a day it has been!
We Learnt That…
- The area is the amount of surface an object covers up.
- The area is always measured in square units (sq units).
- Area of rectangle = length x breadth
- However big the problem is, some critical thinking and creative ideas can always solve it.
Let’s Discuss
- Why was Uncle Math worried?
- What idea did I propose to save the gadgets?
- What is the area? How did we find out the area of the door?
- Why is the area always in square units?
Please refer this guide by Fun2Do Labs for teaching area to kids :
