Year 6 Area, perimeter, position and direction worksheet

“Area of a parallelogram” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 6 maths unit “Area, perimeter, position and direction”, for children aged 10 to 11, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Weeks 19 to 20 of the year, 10 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

Area of a parallelogram

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 6 · Maths · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can explain how to work out the area of a parallelogram using its perpendicular height.

A Look back3 min

1.
A rectangle has 4 rows of 6 squares. How many squares are there?
2.
A rectangle is 7 cm long and 3 cm wide. Its area is cm².
3.
Two lines that meet at a right angle are called
parallelperpendiculardiagonal

B Watch me, then you4 min

Ola is tiling a school corridor. Each tile is a parallelogram. Find the area of one tile.

Watch me

The base is 8 cm and the perpendicular height is 3 cm.

Cut off one end and slide it across. It makes a rectangle 8 cm by 3 cm.

8 × 3 = 24, so the area is 24 cm².

Now you

1.
A tile has a base of 7 cm and a perpendicular height of 6 cm. Its area is cm².

C Your turn6 min

Multiply the base by the perpendicular height. Ignore the slanted side.

1.
Base 5 cm, perpendicular height 4 cm. Area = cm²
2.
Base 5 cm, perpendicular height 6 cm. Area = cm²
3.
Base 8 cm, perpendicular height 6 cm. Area = cm²
4.
Base 12 cm, slanted side 6 cm, perpendicular height 4 cm. Area = cm²

Say it out loud: What changed from one row to the next, and what stayed the same?

D Spot the mistake3 min

Ami says: “The area is 50 cm², because the slanted side is 5 cm and 10 × 5 = 50.”

1.
Base 10 cm, slanted side 5 cm, perpendicular height 4 cm. What is the real area? cm²

E Think deeper4 min

1.
Two parallelograms both have an area of 24 cm². One has a base of 6 cm. The other has a base of 8 cm. Which has the smaller perpendicular height? Explain how you know.

How did it feel?

Which part was tricky? What would you tell a friend about the slanted side?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

Area of a parallelogram · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. 24

2. 21 If your child writes 10, they added 7 and 3. Area means counting the squares inside, so multiply the length by the width.

3. perpendicular

B

1. 42

C

1. 20 If your child writes 9, they added 5 and 4. Area needs multiplying: 5 × 4 = 20.

2. 30

3. 48 If your child writes 14, they added 8 and 6. Multiply the base by the perpendicular height instead.

4. 48 If your child writes 72, they used the slanted side of 6 cm. The perpendicular height is 4 cm, so use 12 × 4 = 48.

D

1. 40 If your child writes 50, they used the slanted side. It is not the perpendicular height. Ask which line makes a right angle with the base, then use 10 × 4 = 40.

E

1. Look for: The 8 cm base has the smaller height of 3 cm, because 8 × 3 = 24; the 6 cm base has height 4 cm.

Words to use

Say“Which line makes a right angle with the base? Use that one, not the slanted side.”

Instead of“Multiply the base by the slanted side.”

After the sheet

Draw a slanted parallelogram on paper, cut off one end, slide it across and tape it down. Measure the new rectangle's sides and check the area is the same.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

9 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Finding a missing base or height(with a plan)
Area of a triangle(with a plan)
Missing height and base(with a plan)
Area or perimeter?(with a plan)
Scale factors and perimeters(with a plan)
Plotting points in four quadrants(with a plan)
Sliding shapes on the grid(with a plan)
Mirror lines on the grid(with a plan)
Finding missing corners(with a plan)

Every Year 6 maths worksheet

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