This resource was reviewed using the Curriki Review rubric and received an overall Curriki Review System rating of 3.00, as of 2011-04-29.
Component Ratings:
Technical Completeness: 3
Content Accuracy: 3
Appropriate Pedagogy: 3
Reviewer Comments:
This is a discovery lesson concerning the Pythagorean Theorem. Students draw squares and calculate their area. Some of the squares have diagonal elements for their sides. To calculate their areas, it is necessary to divide the squares up into triangular pieces. Later students discover the Pythagorean relationship. It’s an interesting and effective-seeming idea. The author of this lesson has used it successfully.
Janet Pinto
December 6, 2018
Great resource!
Information - Discovering the Pythagorean Theorem
Lesson Plan
This is a packet where students will discover, using the areas of a square and triangle, the formula for Pythagorean Theorem.
Blank boxes where students must figure out how many different sized squares they can fit in each box (1 square per box). Some squares will be diagonal.
On this worksheet students will use the triangles 1 and 2 pages to fill in a table with data and form their formula for Pythagorean Theorem. There are also questions to answer to guide them to the formula and problems to complete once they have formed the formula.
Here are 3 triangles, labeled by number and with a, b, c for the legs and hypotenuse. Students will use this sheet to fill in the table on the Discovery worksheet.
There is only one triangle on this sheet and it is not a right triangle. This helps the students understand that the Pythagorean Theorem only works with right triangles and allows for discussion on why they think this is true.
This is the same sheet as Triangles page 1, but with the squares already drawn off of the triangles. This is a great sheet to give your special education students.
As a ticket-out-the-door, students will have the find the area of 2 squares. One vertically placed and one diagonally placed. This needs to be done after the first day of this lesson.