Real Life Maths! – Building a chicken coop!

Hello Year 5! I have recently started a new project and gained some more

animals…..5 chickens! My family and I decided we would ‘reclaim’ a piece of our

field that had lots of rubbish on (this was here when I moved onto the yard)

and build a coop for the chickens. The whole process and planning has involved

lots of maths that I thought you could enjoy too! I have to gain permission from

the landlord to have any work done.

1. First, the rubbish needed clearing off the site so I got quotes from two skip

companies. The first company was £221. The second company was £190. I chose

the second company, how much money did I save?

2. The landlord offered me £125 towards the cost of the skip (£190). How

much money came out of my own pocket?

3. I had to spray the nettles on the little patch of land we decided to use, the

spray cost me £1.29 per square metre. I had 3 square metres to spray, how

much did this cost me?

4. Once the area was cleared we decided to measure how wide to make the pen,

using the paving slabs I had collected. Each paving slab is a square, with one side

being 45cm long. We decided to make the chicken pen 5 slabs wide, how wide is

the chicken pen in metres?

5. For the length of the pen, we decided to use the length of some wooden slats

I had recycled from some pallets. Each wooden slat is 175cm long. We used 3

slats next to each other for the length, how long is the pen in metres?

6. We had to dig holes for the posts to go into the ground. My brother said they

need to be 0.035m in the ground. However, my tape measure only had

centimetres on it! Convert 0.035m to cm. How many centimetres deep did I need

to dig the hole?

7. a) We used 7 posts in total, each post required 10kg of ‘postfix’ to secure

them in the ground. ‘Postfix’ is only sold in bags of 20kg, how many bags did I

need to buy?

b) Each bag of ‘postfix’ was £5.29, how much did I spend on Postfix?

8. I had to buy a net for the roof of the pen, to ensure I had enough material, I

needed to round UP the length and width of the pen to whole numbers (width =

2.25m and length = [answer from Q5]). I then needed to times these two whole

numbers together to work out the approximate area of the pen. (Area = length x

width). What is the approximate area of the pen.

Bonus Question: What is the actual area of the pen?

Extra bonus question!

The wood, gravel, paving slabs and chicken wire didn’t cost me anything. The

netting for the roof cost me £12. Using your answers throughout, how much did

the chicken coop cost me in total?