Squares and Square Roots Lesson

11/13/19

Iowa Core Standard: HSA-REI.A.2

Solve simple rational and radical equations in one variable, and give
examples showing how extraneous solutions may arise.
Learning Objective: I can understand that the square root symbol
means the positive square root.
Course: High School- Algebra II
Estimated Time: 42 minutes +
Prior Knowledge: It is expected that students know how to solve for x
when the x is squared or square rooted.
Students should also know how to graph and analyze graphs of different
function.
Vocabulary: Student should use vocabulary like squaring and square
rooting.

Materials: Square colored tiles

Worksheet for each student titled, “Square Group Activity”
Presentation titled, “High Level Task Presentation”

LESSON DEVELOPMENT

LAUNCH (10 minutes)- students are working individually for this part of
the lesson
The launch focuses on questions 1-6 on the “Square Group Activity
Worksheet”
 Students start with approximately 20 tiles each.
 First they are asked to create a square with 3 inch sides
o They should come up with a 3x3 square
o If they are struggling to come up with this inform them that
they are working with 1 inch squares

Squares and Square Roots Lesson 1

  Next students are asked to list three properties that make that
shape a square
o Possible answers are: all the sides are the same length, 3
squared is 9 and there are 9 tiles, 3 times 3 is 9 and there are
9 squares, it is a 3 by 3 square
 Students determine the area of this square which could have been
discovered in the properties
 Students then make 2 more squares on their own and look at the
lengths of sides and the area of the square

EXPLORE (20 minutes)- students are working in their groups for this
part of the lesson
The explore focuses on questions 7-11 on the “Square Group Activity”
 Student start by discussing with their groups what they notice
about the relationship between the area and the length of the
sides of the squares
o Encourage them to use important vocabulary like “squaring”
and “square root”
 Next students connect their squares back to what we learned
yesterday (questions a-d)
 Next students make the connection that they can take the square
root of the area of a square to find the length of one side (8-9)
 Next students explore squares of different sizes and area; these
squares are found on slide 3
 Using the t-chart students are able to think about what numbers
are perfect squares and what numbers are not
 They are then to explain their reasoning for the choices they made
and write their own definition of a perfect square.
 Encourage the students to build some of the squares with their
tiles.

Squares and Square Roots Lesson 2

 o This should lead them to discover that they can only build
the perfect squares with their tiles, since the other squares’
lengths would be decimals
 Throughout this explore phase check in with the entire class to go
over ideas that they may be struggling with or not understand

Disclaimer: This task may seem below grade level, but these students
have not experienced high level tasks before so in order for them to be
actively engaged I created a task that would hopefully be accessible to
the students even though it may be below grade level.

SUMMARIZE (10 minutes) - class discussion

The discussion takes place on slides 5-7
 Students start with the Julie problem

Julie was adding √ 4∧√ 9 , and at first she wrote…

√ 4+ √ 9=2+3 .
But then she remembers that 2 and -2 both square to make 4, and that 3 and -3 both square to make
9. She wrote down all the possible combinations:
2+3=5

2+ (−3 )=−1
(−2 )+ 3=1
(−2)+(−3)=−5

Then she wondered, “Which of these are the same as √ 4+ √ 9 ? All of them? Or only some? Or just
one?”
How would you answer Julie’s question?

o Ask students:

Squares and Square Roots Lesson 3

  If only one of these numbers is the sum of √ 4∧√ 9 ,
does that mean that 4 and 9 each have only one square
root?
 If all four of these are the sum of √ 4∧√ 9 , what would
happen if we added √ 16 to them? How many answers
would we get?
 If more than one of these numbers is the same
as √ 4+ √ 9 , then are they the same as each other?
o We want students to think about what number outputs
when we take the square root

 Then they look at √ 11 to determine that x 2=11 has 2 solutions

but √ x=11 only has 1.
 We explore the why of this in slide 7
o By looking at their graphs
 Lastly they generalize a few of the ideas from the lesson and tie it
all together

CHECKING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Students will be taking a homework quiz on Friday that will reflect their
knowledge on the content learned during this lesson.

REFELCTION (after teaching the lesson)

Squares and Square Roots Lesson 4