Please can you help me help DD regarding Perimeter?

[ICameOnTheJitney]

She's in year 5....she's just said "Mum I'm not 100% on perimeter and it's stressing me out."

I suggested that she speak to her teacher and she said "Please ask Mumsnet to give me a quick run over the basics"

I am TERRIBLE at maths...famously so in my family...so it's all blarney to me...I'll let her read your replies. thank you!

Tell her to imagine walking along a fence surrounding a prison - that's called a perimeter fence. A perimeter is all the way round. Its the same with shapes, its all the way round the outside of a shape.

Perimeter is simply adding the lengths of all the sides together. So a rectangle 3 by 8 = 3+8+3+8 = 22.

It's only tricky when the shape is irregular and they don't give all the lengths - what you have to do then is use subtraction to work out the lengths not given. Look at opposite sides and see what lengths you have got to work out the missing ones.

Don't forget that an equilateral triangle has the same length for each side and that opposite sides of a rectangle are the same length.

The people above have covered all the basics.

But in case it's relevant, the perimeter of a circle is called the circumference.

If it has lots of sides (and therefore lots of numbers to add), tick them off as you go yto make sure you don't miss any out.

Look here Lots of activities to help with perimeter. Some of the powerpoints are really good at explaining.

Oh thank you all so much!

www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/perimeter_and_area/index.html
Try this. Interactive explanations, problems to try and checks your solutions.