Geometry: Area Formulas

Objectives

• Students will be able to describe how the area of a parallelogram relates to the area of a rectangle with the same base and height.
• Students will be able to describe how the area of a triangle relates to the area of a parallelogram with the same base and height.
• Students will be able to describe how the area of a trapezoid relates to the area of a parallelogram with the same height and with a base equal to the sum of the bases of the trapezoid.
• Students will be able to use relationships to compute the areas of parallelograms, triangles, and trapezoids given their dimensions.

Vocabulary

• rectangle
• parallelogram
• triangle
• trapezoid

About the Lesson

In this lesson students will observe the relationships between figures and compare the areas of the figures, and formulate expressions to compute the area of parallelograms, triangles, and trapezoids.