Theme: Math in the Garden!

The garden is a great place to do math! 

Counting, sorting, measuring, estimating, weighing, graphing, and comparing are just some of the ways we use our math brains in the garden.
 
So take off your "Gardener" hat and put on your "Mathematician" hat. Here we go!

Today we'll be learning about area and perimeter. 

If you're in 4th or 5th grade, you may have already learned about area and perimeter from your super amazing teacher. It's helpful to actually see what you've learned applied in the real world, so, I hope this garden math lesson will help support what you already know!

*We use area and perimeter all the time in the garden - it helps us build fences and estimate how much soil to add to a garden bed.

It also helps us plan what plants to plant.
(Try saying that 3 times fast! Plan what plants to plant, plan what plants to plant. Plan what plants to plant...)


The area is the "plantable" part of the garden (it's the space with all the soil, the inside of the rectangle). 

*To find it, we multiply the long side (length) by the short side (width). 
Or, length x width:

The length is 8 feet

The width is 2 feet

Soooooo... 

8 feet x 2 feet = 16 square feet

(length x width = area)

*What's the area of our garden beds in inches?

(hint: there are 12 inches in 1 foot!)

The perimeter is the total distance around the edge of the garden bed (the wooden frame part).

*To find it, we add up all the sides together...

(length + length + width + width)

...So
8 + 8 + 2 + 2 = 20 feet

***What's the perimeter of this garden bed in inches???

*Perimeter is really helpful if we want to build a fence around our garden bed.

...If we want to kick this up a notch, we can also measure the height (how tall) because remember, our garden beds aren't flat like a pancake-rectangle. 

They hold soil (like a fish tank holds water!), so knowing the height, helps us figure out the volume:

Volume = Length x Width x Height

*This tells us how much soil our garden beds hold so we can refill them!

Soooooo... 
8ft x 2ft x 1ft = 16 CUBIC FEET

Great job today, Mathematicians!

Where else do we use math in our every day lives?