The 3rd grade Common Core standards are pushing us to reach a deeper understanding of many topics. For example, area is covered in much more depth than our previous state standards specified. I've always done a "Dream House" project to help students learn area concepts, and this year I've adapted it to address the following standard: CCSS.Math.Content.3.MD.C.7d Recognize area as additive. Find areas of rectilinear figures by decomposing them into non-overlapping rectangles and adding the areas of the non-overlapping parts, applying this technique to solve real world problems. I started this project today and the students are o-b-s-e-s-s-e-d. It was so funny to watch as an idea for a room caught on throughout the class - by the end of class 22/29 of their dream houses included a "Trampoline Room". Haha. Kids are awesome. I'll show you the directions here, along with a picture of each step. At the bottom of the post you can find a link to download the project free at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 1. Outline your dream house by drawing the outside walls. your dream house should be a compound figure with all right angles. 2. Partition your dream house into rooms. Each room must be a rectangle. As an extension, try making copies of your own outline and see how many different ways students can come up with to partition the same compound figure into rectangles! 3. Label and color each room. But, Ms. Turner, where do you sleep? Why, on a raft in the indoor pool, dahling! 4. Find and record the area of each room. My students used a full page of lined paper to do this, and then recorded their final answers in the space provided on the project page. 5. Add the area of all of your rooms to find the total area of your dream house. Later this week, (assuming the snow ever stops here in Massachusetts and we eventually get to return to school), they'll mount both pages on a big piece of construction paper and we'll display them out in the hallway. It makes for a fun bulletin board! I love this project because the kids LOVE it, and they are using math skills the whole time. I don't like to do a lot of fluffy projects, so this is great because even during the designing phase they are fully engaged in mathematical thinking. If you want to download a copy of the project pages, click here to grab it for free from my Teachers Pay Teachers store! Stay connected! Teachers Pay Teachers Store Facebook Teachers Notebook