Today we are sharing another fun game to practice area and perimeter. For this game, the players need to place/fit rectangles on the board. Preparing the game requires some cutting and laminating but it is worth the trouble because you can use it to practice multiplication as well. Let’s see how to play this game and the different versions.
Material
- Game board
- 2 face 6 dice
- Cut shape/ pieces
- spinners (pdf provided)
How to play
Version 1- Area and perimeter 2-4 players
For this first version, the players take one color of shapes each. They take turns rolling the two dice. (or use the spinner) They take one side of the board each. One of the dice will give them the number for the width and the other one a number for the height. They find the shape that matches the dimensions and place it on the board starting from the corner. At every turn, the shape they place has to touch another of their shapes(side or corner) Each player has only one of each type of shape so there will be times when the shape with the rolled dimensions is already used. Another challenge is to fit the shape on the board touching their other shapes and fitting in the space. If you are practicing area the players will multiply the dimensions and if you are practicing perimeter they will add and double the numbers.
This is a fun rule! If you roll doubles you have the choice to remove one of your opponent’s shapes and give it back to them. You can choose to place one of your squares instead.
If only two players are playing they can use two colors of shapes each to keep the game challenging.
The player with the least shapes left is the winner.
Version 2 – Area and perimeter 2-4 players
What is different in this version is that instead of rolling dice the players will spin a spinner to get a number that will be the area of the shape to fit at each turn. If let’s say they spin the number 24 they can choose a rectangle 4×6 or 3×8. If they spin the number 8 they can choose a rectangle 2×4 or 1×8. This game is more challenging because the players need to figure out the dimensions themselves. For this version you need to include the extra shapes from each color since the shapes for the previous version go up to 6×6. The rest remain the same. You can use this version to practice perimeter as well. There are two different spinners, one for perimeter and one for area since the numbers needed are a bit different.
Wild spin: If you spin the wild spin you can remove one of the opponent’s shapes and give it back to them.
I cut and laminated the shapes and the board and also put a piece of magnetic paper at the back of each shape and at the back of the board. It keeps the shapes from moving and falling off the board. It is a bit of work but this is a fun game that you can use to practice multiplication facts as well. I have provided more colors so that you can use the ones you like. The game works great with 4 players.
You can have the students cut their own shapes each and provide one board for each team. Then every time they can use their shapes to play.
You can also print the shapes and board on a A3 size to have a bigger game for the classroom.
Below is the file with the board, the shapes and the spinners to download.
If you are teaching virtually or just want to play on the computer you can use the free google slides version. The games with the google slides version are for two players.
We hope you fid this game useful.
