Visually Understanding Area of a Trapezoid in Multiple Ways

While some students are aware that they could find the area of a trapezoid by treating the shape like a composite figure, I wanted to help students better understand where the formula comes from with a visual aid. Here is the next video animation I created in my Visualizing Mathematics series: Visualizing the Area of a Trapezoid Formula.

Stage By Stage PDF File

Here is a stage-by-stage PDF file for you to grab, if you’d like:

Please let me know if you/your students found this resource helpful to better understand where the Volume of a Triangular Prism comes from!

If you’re interested in creating animations for your own math class, download Keynote here: