About Area Builder
Create your own shapes using colorful blocks and explore the relationship between perimeter and area. Compare the area and perimeter of two shapes side-by-side. Challenge yourself in the game screen to build shapes or find the area of funky figures. Try to collect lots of stars!
How to play Area Builder
Everything is hands-on: drag, click and experiment — the simulation reacts instantly. Create your own shapes using colorful blocks and explore the relationship between perimeter and area.
Questions & answers
- What is Area Builder?
- Area Builder is a free interactive simulation from PhET Interactive Simulations (University of Colorado Boulder) that you can play right in your browser on crumble.lol — no downloads and no sign-up. Create your own shapes using colorful blocks and explore the relationship between perimeter and area. Compare the area and perimeter of two shapes side-by-side.
- What can kids learn from Area Builder?
- It helps kids explore: find the area of a shape by counting unit squares describe the relationship between area and perimeter build shapes with a given area and/or perimeter find the area of an irregular shape by decomposing into smaller, regular shapes (e.g., rectangles, triangles, squares) determine the scale factor of similar shapes generalize how area and perimeter change when scaling shapes.
- What age is Area Builder good for?
- It is designed for elementary school (roughly ages 5–10) up to middle school (roughly ages 10–14), and curious kids outside that range can absolutely enjoy poking around it too.
- Is Area Builder free to play?
- Yes — Area Builder is completely free on crumble.lol and runs fully in your browser on computers and tablets.