Teacher:

William Otto
Course:
Geometry
Unit:
Area
Lesson:
Area of Circles
Date:
4 March 2015
Period:
4th (9:57-10:45)
Materials:
Computer, projector, worksheets, circles, scissors, ruler
Objective:
SWBAT develop and use strategies of finding the area of composite figures IOT determine the

area of a circle
Do Now:
1. What is the area of a regular nonagon with side length = 3 cm and apothem = 6 cm?
2
2. What is the side length of a regular pentagon that has area = 50 in
and apothem = 4 in?
Hook/Launch:
(Show slide with pizza)
Questions to Ask:
-What do we have here?
-Who likes pizza? Who can eat the most pizza?
-How is it cut up?
-How many slices are there?
-Why is pizza cut this way? What makes this way of cutting up a pizza convenient?
(Break students into groups, have them work on first two questions of the packet, bring students
together after they have finished first two questions)
-What is different between circles and every other shape we have looked at thus far?
-Why does this make it difficult to calculate the area?
-What important information do we know about circles?
(Demonstrate configuration using big paper and taping on board, measuring and recording in
table)
-Why is this not necessarily the best approximation for a circle?
-What is missing/extra in this configuration?
-Can we relate this configuration back to any of the information that we know about circles?
(Answer question 3 as a class)
Explore:
(Students will work in groups on trying to come up with the optimal configuration of sectors)
Questions to Ask:
-How does this configuration do with minimizing whitespace?
-Does this configuration relate in any way back to the information we know about circles?
-What shape does this configuration resemble?
-Is there a way you can arrange the sectors to resemble a shape we already know the area of?
-What if you used 16 sectors instead of 8, does this config still work?
-What if you used 4 sectors instead of 8, does this config still work?

(Once students begin to recognize the optimal config push them to try to develop a formula)
-What would happen if you split each of the sectors in half and made the same configuration?
Which shape would it approach?
-What is the height of the rectangle/parallelogram in terms of the original circle?
-What is the length of the rectangle/parallelogram in terms of the original circle?
-What is the circumference of a circle equal to?
-How does the length relate to the original circumference?
Independent Practice:
Students will work on three problems where they either need to find the area of a circle given a
radius or find the radius of a circle given the area.
Exit Ticket:
1. What is the area of a circle with radius = 12 mi?
2. What did you think of the activity today? What did you like? What would you change?
Homework:
Circle Area Worksheet