Perfect Squares & Square Roots

I love to use color tiles to teach perfect squares and square roots! I pass out baggies of color tiles and then ask the students to work with a partner to create as many different squares as possible. The students are allowed to create the squares showing the area or the perimeter. I then have each team share one of the squares they created and I put it on the overhead for the class to see. (I always put up the area model so the perfect square is easy to see.) We discuss what makes each of the shapes a square before we discuss the perfect square. We then work backwards to see the square roots. Once the children have seen perfect squares and square roots like this, they usually remember it!