Quadrilaterals (Rectangle and Square)

Today Nico is a wizard, and he is SOOO excited! Looking dazzling in his wizard hat, Nico glances around the attic and notices a spell book on his chair. He looks inside and sees two spells to learn. Both spells require wand movements creating squares and rectangles, but Nico doesn't know these shapes. "Quadrilaterals like Rectangles and Squares", so you can do magic!"

Rectangles and squares are a type of quadrilateral. A "quadrilateral" is a "polygon with four straight sides." Quadrilaterals are EVERYWHERE. Can you see any around you?

A window, or the front of your TV are great examples of quadrilaterals. Squares and rectangles are different types of quadrilaterals. But how can we identify them?

We can identify or sort them based on properties. Let's begin by taking a look at rectangles. What properties do you notice rectangles have?

All rectangles have "FOUR right angles" which are ninety degree angles that we can represent with a square in the corner. All rectangles also have "TWO pairs of opposite sides EQUAL in length". THESE two sides are opposite to each other and equal in length and the same with THESE two sides. Let's take a look at squares now. What properties do you notice squares have?

All squares have FOUR right angles" or four ninety degree corners. What else do you notice about squares?

Squares have "TWO pairs of opposite sides ALL equal in length". Like here, we can see ALL four sides are equal in length. A square is also a rectangle because these two sides are opposite and equal in length and these two sides are also opposite and equal in length. But a rectangle can only be a square when ALL sides are equal in length, like this. Before we watch Nico cast the two spells, let's practice identifying quadrilaterals. Here we see three different shapes on our screen. Let's look at this one first. There are NO right angles so it is neither a square or rectangle, but it is a quadrilateral because it has four sides. Let's check out another one. What properties do you notice?

Here we see there are four right angles and two pairs of opposite sides ALL equal in length so it is a square. What about this one?

There are four right angles and two pairs of opposite sides equal in length so it is a rectangle. Remember a "quadrilateral" is a "polygon with four straight sides." A rectangle is a quadrilateral with FOUR right angles and TWO pairs of opposite sides EQUAL in length. A square is a quadrilateral with FOUR right angles and TWO pairs of opposite sides ALL equal in length. A square is also a rectangle because there are two pairs of opposite sides equal in length but not all rectangles are squares UNLESS all sides are equal in length! Nico is ready to cast some spells. Show us some magic Nico! Motus chair!" "Nice work Nico!"

"Recedo..."

"Uh oh! I didn't mean to do that!" "Great job, Nico."