Using Student Names To Calculate Areas Perimeter of Irregular Shapes

A fun activity for helping students learn to calculate the area and perimeter of irregular shapes is to have students write their name in a box-type shape and calculate the area or perimeter of their name. The fastest way to expedite the process is to use a special font through a word processor to type each of your students names. You could then make them all the same font size, print them, and cut each name out for each student.

To help you faster determine if each student's work is correct you could write the alphabet in a word processor using whatever font and font size you determine best and then fine the area or perimeter of each letter. This would serve as your key. This way, when a student turns in their work you can compare their score to the score using your key.


Note: This activity will take a lot longer if students have to measure each side of each letter in their name. Thus, this would work well for a homework assignment. However, if you want to use this lesson in class. You might want to have the measurements provided ahead of time, or, have students round to the nearest whole number.