Design a Dream Bedroom: Real World Math Project for Area, Perimeter and Geometry
- PDF
What educators are saying
Description
Bring all of your geometry, perimeter and area lessons together with this engaging no prep real world math project! Every time I do this with a class, the students BEG for more time to work on it. This is a highly engaging project for your early finishers, for enrichment, gifted students or to use for a whole class end of the year math activity.
All you need to do is print the tasks and get them started. All 10 tasks are open ended to help you differentiate for all the learners in your classroom. If you'd like it to "come alive" you can get paint and flooring samples from your local hardware store.
What is in the problem?
Students get to step into the shoes of a designer in this open ended performance task. After years of begging, student's parents are finally letting them design and remodel their bedroom.
There are 10 parts to this in-depth problem (each step is it's own problem/task to read) walking the student through what they need to do. The problems integrate math, reading and writing. It is challenging, open ended, and is a perfect way to practice performance tasks. Everything you need for the problem is included. (I like to pick up actual samples from the hardware store for students to see, but if you can't do that everything is still there in the resource for the entire project.)
Each section is about a full page (or more) of reading to help students practice reading for understanding in math problems. The problems are open ended, meaning that students can come to more than one answer. The problems are deep, multi-step and require perseverance. You will notice that the Standards for Mathematical Practice are embedded within these performance tasks.
What age are the problems appropriate for?
These challenges are appropriate for end of the year 3rd grade (or gifted 3rd graders anytime), 4th grade and possibly for struggling 5th graders.
How can this problem be used?
They could be used as an assessment, test prep, a partner activity, for small group work, as work for students who have finished assignments early or for gifted and talented small groups. Each problem most likely will take more than one class period to complete.
Key pieces and their curricular focus:
1. Blueprint: They draw a blueprint, calculating the dimensions and the area of the bedroom. (geometry, area, perimeter)
2. Furniture: They choose bedroom furniture and add it to the blueprint by drawing the items to scale. (geometry, area, perimeter)
3. Flooring: They calculate the area of the room, choose a type of flooring and calculate the cost. (area, number and operations, multiplication, decimals)
4. Paint: They choose their favorite paint color, and calculate the cost of the paint. (number and operations, multiplication)
5. Textiles: They design the textiles, and add up the cost of purchasing them for the bedroom. (number and operations, multiplication)
6. Accessories: They get to add some cool accessories to their room. (number and operations, multiplication)
7. Letter Writing: In the end, they write a letter to their parents explaining their choices and the final cost of the entire project. (letter writing, organization and ideas, conventions)
A rubric for scoring each of the problems is at the end of the set.
If you like performance tasks and open ended problems:
FREE! Doggy Dilemma: Open Ended Performance Task
Open Ended Word Problems (My best seller!)
Holiday Version - On Stage! Open Ended Performance Task
Presidential Birthday Statisticians: Open Ended Performance Task
Open Ended Math Journal: 125 Prompts to Promote Deep Thinking
