5th grade · Math · Unit 10 of 15
Area & Perimeter
Measure inside and around shapes
What your child practices
Finding the area and perimeter of squares and rectangles, working backwards to a missing side, and discovering that shapes with the same area can have different perimeters (and vice versa).
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 5.4(H) · solving problems about perimeter and area
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- Perimeter is the distance around a shape: add all the sides.
- Area is the space inside: length × width for a rectangle.
- Perimeter is in units like cm. Area is in square units like cm².
Example: A rectangle is 10 cm long and 4 cm wide. Find its perimeter and area. Perimeter: 10 + 4 + 10 + 4 = 28 cm. Area: 10 × 4 = 40 cm². Answer: 28 cm and 40 cm²
Area & Perimeter in Texas
In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 10 of 15 in 5th grade Math, after Volume of Boxes and before Parallel Lines and Quadrilaterals.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
Rectangles A and B have the same area. Which statement is true?
Rectangle Length Width A 8 cm 6 cm B 16 cm 3 cm - Rectangle A has the greater perimeter.
- Rectangle B has the greater perimeter.
- They have the same perimeter.
Rectangle B has the greater perimeter.
Hint: Find each perimeter: 2 × (length + width). Same area does not mean same perimeter!
Question 2
A rectangular garden is 22 m long and 5 m wide. What is its area?
🌻22 m × 5 manswer boxm²
110 m²
Hint: Area of a rectangle = length × width. The answer is in square units.
Question 3
A farmer is putting a fence around a rectangular field that is 19 m long and 7 m wide. How many meters of fence are needed?
answer boxm
52 m
Hint: Perimeter is the distance around: add all four sides, or work out 2 × (length + width).
Question 4
Which unit is best for the area of a classroom floor?
- kilograms (kg)
- square meters (m²)
- meters (m)
- square centimeters (cm²)
square meters (m²)
Hint: Area is measured in square units. A floor is big, so use a big square unit.
Question 5
These rectangles all have a perimeter of 26 m. Which one has the greatest area?
- 10 m by 3 m
- 7 m by 6 m
- 9 m by 4 m
- 8 m by 5 m
7 m by 6 m
Hint: Work out length × width for each one. For the same perimeter, the closer the shape is to a square, the greater the area.
Question 6
A square garden has sides of 9 m. What is its area?
answer boxm²
81 m²
Hint: Area of a square = side × side.