Squares Within Squares

Students are always great at knowing the basic definition of a square and can identify one but if you present it in a slightly different arrangement, they don’t see it. For instance if you show them a chessboard or something similar and ask them how many squares? They tell you the square footage of 64 squares. They don’t look for the different arrangements. 

This checker/chess board is great for subdivisions or subsets, square footage, or discussing diagonals. It is nice that it offers the three different possibilities. In addition, it offers a nice picture for the “What do you notice, What do you wonder, and What do you know?”.I think it is important to take items like this and help students see the math in everyday items.

How we use things like this are only limited by our imagination. Sorry it is so short today but I am in transit for a couple of days and I should be back to normal on Monday.