Students continue to find the areas of figures composed of rectangles by decomposing them into non-overlapping rectangles. In this lesson, the square tiling is slowly removed to focus students on multiplying side lengths to find area.

This lesson is designed to help students shift toward multiplying to find areas, rather than counting unit squares. Did you see this shift in students’ strategies? What questions could you ask students about their strategies to help them make that shift if they are still counting?