Year 4 Get to Grips with Area and a Few Cats!

This week Year 4 have been putting their mathematical knowledge to the test with a rather unusual investigation: How many of Miss Jordan’s cats could fit onto a netball court?

As part of their learning about area, the children have been exploring how to calculate the space inside a rectangle using the formula length × width. To bring this concept to life, they took on the challenge of working out how many cats could fit across the entire netball court, making sure that every bit of space was covered without leaving any gaps.

To help with their calculations, the class used Dave the cat as their very own unit of measurement! Dave was carefully placed inside a cardboard box, allowing the children to measure the length and width of its base and calculate the area occupied by one ‘Dave’. They then measured the dimensions of the netball court and worked out its total area before dividing this by the area of Dave’s box.

After some excellent teamwork, careful measuring and mathematical problem-solving, the children reached their final answer: an astonishing 9,375 cats could fit onto a netball court!

It was wonderful to see the children applying their understanding of area to such a creative real-life problem. Who knew that learning about length and width could be quite so cat-tastic?