Find the Area of a Square

The good old square.  

They have been around us since forever.

It's probably the first shape you learned to recognise.

 

 

What examples can you think of that we see in everyday life?

There are all sorts of reasons that we might need to know the area of a square: laying a carpet in a square room, painting a square wall, putting grass seed over a square lawn.

 

Before we can do any of these, there is one thing we need to know, and that is how to find the area of a square.

 

First of all, we know that the sides of a square are all the same length. This makes things really easy.

As with a lot of shape work, there is a formula that you need to learn. So here goes:

 

 

Area of a square = base x height

Yes, really that is all there is to it.

 

Find the area of this square:

 

 

Hang on, I only have the length of one side. 

Of course, the sides of a square are all the same.

 

Area = base x height

Area = 62 x 62 = 3844 mm²

As we are working with area, units are always squared. e.g cm²,  m²

 

There will be no stopping you now!