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What does math have to do with home decorating? Most home decorators need to work within a budget. But in order to figure out what you'll spend, you first have to know what you need. How will you know how many rolls of wallpaper to buy if you don't calculate how much wall space you have to cover? Understanding some basic geometry can help you stick to your budget.
The word geometry literally means "to measure the Earth." Geometry is the branch of math that is concerned with studying area, distance, volume, and other properties of shapes and lines. If you need to know the distance between two points, the volume of water in a pool, the angle of a tennis serve, or how much wallpaper it will take to cover a wall, geometry holds the answers.
Figuring area: Squares and rectangles
Imagine you're planning to buy new carpeting for your home. You're going to put down carpeting in the living room, bedroom, and hallway, but not in the bathroom. You could try to guess at how much carpet you might need to cover these rooms, but you're better off figuring out exactly what you need. To determine how much carpet you'll need, you'll use this simple formula:
A = L x W
Or in other words, "area equals length times width." This formula is used to determine the area of a rectangle or square. In the floor plan below, all of the floor space (as well as the walls and ceilings) is made up of squares or rectangles, so this formula will work for figuring the area you need to carpet.
Start by figuring the total area of the floor plan. When you're done, you can deduct the area of the bathroom, since you don't want to carpet that room. To figure out the total area of the floor plan, you'll need to know the total length and width. The total length of the floor plan shown above is 12 feet plus 10 feet, or 22 feet. The total width is 7 feet plus 5 feet, or 12 feet. Plug these numbers into your equation to get the total area of the floor plan:
A = 22 feet x 12 feet
A = 264 square feet
The total area of your floor plan is 264 square feet. Now you need to figure out the area of the bathroom so you can deduct it from the total area. The bathroom is 7 feet long and 5 feet wide, so it has an area of 35 square feet. Deducting the area of the bathroom from the total area (264 minus 35) leaves you with 229 square feet to carpet.
Math in Daily Life -- Home Decorating. (2014). Annenberg Learner.
Retrieved from http://www.learner.org/interactives/dailymath/decorating.html
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Summary
This article, titled Home Decorating, relates the math concept of area to a home decorating scenario, using area to accurately determine the supplies needed for a do-it-yourself project. It walks students through the steps of figuring out the quantity of new carpet needed in order to re-carpet the living room, bedroom, and hallway, but not the bathroom. The formula for the area of a rectangle, A = L x W, is explained and used to determine the amount of carpet a person would need to buy to re-carpet only the areas they desire,
Teacher Idea: Student-Authored Electronic Informational Books
Using the article, Home Decorating, to teach my 5th graders about area offers a practical, real life example of a situation we could truly find ourselves a part of one day. In this lesson, my students will work with a partner to develop their own real world scenario of when and how to use area in a home decorating project.
We will begin as a whole class, reading aloud Home Decorating. Upon finishing the reading, we will brainstorm a list of home decorating projects to which we would need to apply the concept of area. Next, in table groups consisting of 4 to 5 students, I will ask them to work out several area math problems I have prearranged for them on slips of paper. This will offer my students practice solving area problems. Then,with their partner, students will develop an area scenario which they can put into some sort of electronic informational book. The book must include a plausible do-it-yourself project, at least one picture, the steps they used to calculate the area in their scenario, and the kind and amount of supplies they had to determine in order to complete their home decorating project. I will leave the creativity of their project up to them!
We will begin as a whole class, reading aloud Home Decorating. Upon finishing the reading, we will brainstorm a list of home decorating projects to which we would need to apply the concept of area. Next, in table groups consisting of 4 to 5 students, I will ask them to work out several area math problems I have prearranged for them on slips of paper. This will offer my students practice solving area problems. Then,with their partner, students will develop an area scenario which they can put into some sort of electronic informational book. The book must include a plausible do-it-yourself project, at least one picture, the steps they used to calculate the area in their scenario, and the kind and amount of supplies they had to determine in order to complete their home decorating project. I will leave the creativity of their project up to them!
This lesson corresponds to Math TEKS 5.1(A), (B), (G); 5.4(H).
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