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Authors of the project:

Ellie West and Jessica Berry

Technology we are researching:

Minecraft

Grade:

4th grade

Lesson Topic:

Area, perimeter, and volume

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Using Minecraft to teach concepts like volume, area, and perimeter can be a highly engaging and effective way to help 4th-grade students understand these mathematical concepts. Here's how you could implement this:

1. Teaching Perimeter:

Ask students to create simple structures, like a rectangular house or garden, using blocks.

Have them calculate the perimeter by counting the number of blocks along the edge of their structure.

Discuss how the perimeter changes if they make their structure longer or shorter.

2. Teaching Area:

Have students build flat shapes like squares, rectangles, or even more complex shapes on the ground.

Ask them to count the number of blocks inside the shape to determine the area.

Create different shapes with the same perimeter and compare their areas, helping students understand how shapes with the same perimeter can have different areas.

3. Teaching Volume:

Have students build 3D structures, like cubes or rectangular prisms.

Ask them to calculate the volume by counting how many blocks they used in total, or by multiplying the length, width, and height of the structure.

Challenge them to build different structures with the same volume but different shapes.

4. Integrating Lessons:

Discuss how these concepts apply to real-life situations, such as building a fence around a yard (perimeter), laying down a carpet (area), or filling a box with objects (volume).

Let students design their own buildings or landscapes, requiring them to calculate the area, perimeter, and volume as part of their project planning.

5. Assessment:

After the activities, give students short quizzes or ask them to write about what they learned, ensuring they can apply the concepts both in Minecraft and on paper.

Minecraft provides a hands-on, visual way to explore these mathematical concepts, making abstract ideas more concrete and engaging for young learners.

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Common Misconceptions

Students measure perimeter by counting two sides.

Students measure perimeter by counting square units rather than side lengths.

Area formula can be stated but students struggle to describe what area is in words.

As the side length of the figure doubles, the area doubles as well.

Students use L X W for the area of other figures.

The height of the solid figure or container indicates its volume.

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CC.6.G.1

Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume. Find area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

CC.6.G.2

Solve real-world and mathematical problems involving area, surface area, and volume. Find the volume of a right rectangular prism with fractional edge lengths by packing it with unit cubes of the appropriate unit fraction edge lengths, and show that the volume is the same as would be found by multiplying the edge lengths of the prism. Apply the formulas V = l w h and V = b h to find volumes of right rectangular prisms with fractional edge lengths in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

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Hi Jessica and Ellie,

You're off to a great start here! I can see how Mindcraft would support knowledge and skills in area and perimeter so good thinking on this. Somethings to keep in mind are:

a. Your next steps will be researching your technology and building your knowledge of it so that you can present about it for the project.

c. Then you'll want to get the lesson plan template downloaded so you can begin working on getting it completed.

Hope this helps,

Dr. M

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Hi ladies

Things are looking good here. Have you started your presentation yet? If not, you'll want to get moving on putting that together.

As far as the lesson plan goes, don't worry too much about the date, time, etc.

The bulk of your lesson plan should be in the sequence section as this will have all the steps of the lesson. Also be sure you've added learning supports such as vocab, readiness considerations/adaptations.

Next you'll need info on how your project supports TPACK and is a worthwhile task.

You'll want to get moving putting together the presentation soon. Let me know if you have any questions.

Dr. M