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Understand Unit Squares and Square Units

Students will learn that a unit square is a square with a side length of 1 unit and an area of 1 square unit. They will explore how tiling a shape with unit squares without gaps or overlaps determines the area of the shape in square units.

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Understand Unit Squares and Square Units

Grade 3 · Understanding Area · question 1 of 3

0 of 12

12 rungs. A star at the top.

ABeach square one square centimeter

Count the squares shape B covers.

How it is taught

0:00 of 2:58

A unit square has sides 1 unit long.

Its area is 1 square unit.

Area is the count of unit squares inside.

1111

Read it: Count in, walk around

A three-by-six frame of squares sits on the page. You could count every square from one. Look: eighteen fill the inside, and eighteen walk the edge.

  1. Count the squares that fill the inside: 18.
  2. Walk the edge: 6, 3, 6, 3.
  3. Name both: 18 inside, 18 around.

Counting every square from one works, but it is slow, and eighteen squares are easy to miss.

The inside count tells how much the frame covers. The walk around tells how long the edge is.

Eighteen inside and eighteen round can match on this frame. They still measure two different things.

Count the squares inside, then walk all the way around: two measurements of one shape.

Counting only the squares on the edge and calling that how many fill the frame.

Inside is the squares that fill. Round is the walk along the sides. Keep the two counts apart.

A rectangle is 3 squares by 3. How many squares cover it? — 9. 3 rows of 3 squares: skip-count the rows — 3, 6, 9.

Tile a 4 × 3 rectangle

How big is a rectangle? We can measure it by tiling — covering it with unit squares!

Here's a unit square. Its sides are one unit long. Its area is exactly one square unit.

Grade 3 · Measure area by tiling unit squares

Here's our rectangle. Let's tile it — no gaps, no overlaps.

The first row fits four unit squares. One, two, three, four.

The second row fits four more. Five, six, seven, eight.

The third row fits four more. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

Twelve unit squares fill the rectangle, so its area is twelve square units!

What you see

While they climb, your page writes one true line to ask about tonight, and a short note each Sunday.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics
Did you know?

A chessboard has 64 squares — share them out between the 8 rows and each row holds exactly 8.

Today’s goal
1 star — one skill mastered, every rung of its ladder climbed
Climbing now
Divide within 100

An example student.

MayaGrade 3 · Mathematics

Maya earned 2 stars this week — Interpret multiplication as equal groups, which took 6 answers over 3 days before its star landed 3 days ago and Multiply by 6, 7, 8 and 9. Next up: Divide within 100.

An example week.

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