Counting squaresL-shapes
Name: Date:
Count the squares to find the area of each figure.
1 squares
2 squares
3 squares
4 squares
5 squares
6 squares
7 squares
8 squares
Area of irregular shapes worksheets
Not every shape can be counted in one clean sweep, and that is exactly where organizing a count becomes a skill. These free printable worksheets cover only irregular L-shapes with unit squares and ask how many there are — the standard proper.
Kid stuck on one? You don’t just get the sheet.
Area of irregular shapes
The answer key prints on a separate page.
What's on this sheet
The mixed counting sheets start with tidy rectangles; this one skips straight to the irregular figures, because a rectangle can be counted almost without looking and an L cannot. A child has to decide how to count it — by rows, by parts, or by finding the big rectangle and taking the bite away — and that decision is the whole of the practice.
Why this sheet works
No numbers are printed beside the shapes, and that is deliberate. Labeling the sides would quietly turn the question into a multiplication, which is a later standard; here the grid is the question, and area is discovered as an amount of covering rather than a rule to apply.
How this one works
One question from this sheet, worked through a step at a time.
Area of an L-shape by counting
an L, not a rectangle
whole:3 × 6 =18
bite:1 × 3 =3
18 − 3 =15
first way:18 − 3 =15
strip:3 × 3 =9
upright:2 × 3 =6
9 + 6 =15 squares
- There is no single row that runs all the way across this one, so counting rows does not work as it stands. Cut it into pieces that ARE rectangles — and there is more than one way.
- First way: count the whole rectangle it would be — 3 × 6 = 18 — then take off the bite, 1 × 3 = 3. That leaves 15.
- Second way: two rectangles. The strip underneath is 3 × 3 = 9, the part standing on it is 2 × 3 = 6, and 9 + 6 = 15. Two ways agreeing is how you know a count is right.