Colorful House of Math logo
Log in

Video Crash Courses

Want to watch animated videos and solve interactive exercises about area?

Click here to try Video Crash Courses called “What Are Planar Figures?”!

Lakes often freeze over during the winter, meaning a covering of ice appears on top of the water. Then you can go ice skating! The larger the lake, the larger the ice’s surface is, and you get more space for skating. When the entire lake is covered with ice, you can skate on any part of it. The ice-covered part of the lake where you can skate is called an area.

Skating on ice lake

Think About This

You have a large and a small piece of paper in front of you. Find a crayon. You can use whatever color you want. Which piece of paper takes the longest to color in, and why?

The large piece of paper takes longer to color in because it has a greater area.

All two-dimensional (flat) figures have an area. To find the area, you can cut a piece of paper to fit on top of the figure, or you can cover it with jigsaw puzzle pieces. You’ll learn how to calculate the area of different figures later. For weird-shaped figures, you either have to divide them into figures you already know the area of, or find some other creative way to fit the figure into known areas.

truck, house, street sign, pyramid

The math master filling in a rectangle

Math Vault

Want to solve exercises about area? Try Math Vault!

Want to know more?Sign UpIt's free!