Problem of the Week - Lower Elementary - Dec. 27, 2020 to Jan. 2, 2021

Lower Elementary: 

Question: An octopus lives in an underwater garden that is shaped like a rectangle. The fence around the garden is 7 feet on the long sides and 5 feet on the short sides. Draw a picture of the garden on graph paper. How many 1-foot squares are in the octopus's garden, and how many feet of fence go around it? 

Answer:  35 square feet in area, 24 feet in perimeter

Solution:  If we draw a picture of the garden broken into square feet, it’ll look like this:

If we count the squares, we find that there are 35 square feet in the garden. If we count around, we see that the garden has 24 feet of fence around it.