Activity Description Explore rectangular and straight-line arrangements of tables, calculating the number of chairs needed to surround different arrangements thereby exploring perimeter concepts. Tables and Chairs is one of the Interactivate assessment explorers.

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Chairs

Place in mathematics curriculum:

This activity can be used to:

• practice students' pattern finding skills.
• practice students' ability to describe patterns verbally.
• introduce students to the idea of describing patterns mathematically through the use of equations.

Tables and Chairs is designed to help the user identify patterns.

This activity would work well in groups of two to four for about twenty to twenty-five minutes if you use the exploration questions and five minutes otherwise.

Preparations for this activity:

• give implicit directions on what they are to do. For example, "Today we are going to experiment with the Tables and Chairs applet and see if we can identify any patterns. We will try to describe any patterns we find both verbally and mathematically. "
• answer the question "How do you describe a pattern mathematically?"
• answer the question "What is an equation?"
• discuss finding patterns in numbers.