Understanding Perimeter vs. Area

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

In order to answer your friend's question, you need to understand the difference between area and perimeter.

Both of these measurements deal with plane shapes, also known as two-dimensional shapes. Imagine shapes that you can draw on paper. (If you need a review, check out our lesson under Additional Resources in the right-hand sidebar.)

Perimeter measures the distance around a shape.

Area measures the space covering a shape.

• The blue line going around the shapes represents the perimeter.
• The red space covering the inside of the shapes represents the area.

Now, let's look at our foursquare court. Imagine redrawing the foursquare court on a piece of graph paper:

On our drawing, the blue line going around the foursquare court is measuring the perimeter. The red space covering the foursquare court is the area of the shape.

To find the perimeter of the shape, we need to count the units around the outline of the shape:

To find the area, we will count the square units covering the shape inside the outline:

So to answer your friend's question; the perimeter of the foursquare court is 8 units, and the area of the court is 4 square units. Both of these measurements are accurate in describing the size of the foursquare court.

Now, let's imagine your friend draws a hopscotch that looks like this:

First, let's find the perimeter of the shape by counting around the outline of the shape:

Now, we will find the area of the shape by counting the spaces covering the inside of the shape.

The hopscotch has a perimeter of 20 units and an area of 9 square units.

You are ready to find the perimeter and area of shapes by counting the square units!

Visit the Got It? section to practice.