Square metre

A square metre is a unit of measurement that we use to talk about how much space something takes up. You may have heard your parents or your teacher talking about it before.

Think about it like this – let's pretend you have a magic carpet that's exactly one metre long and one metre wide. When you lay it down flat on the ground, you have made a square that's one metre on each side. This square is called a square metre because it's one metre wide by one metre long.

Now, you can use this square metre to measure things that are the same size or smaller than it. For example, if you have a book that's 20 centimetres wide and 30 centimetres long, you can find out how many square metres it takes up by dividing the length and width by 100 (because there are 100 centimetres in a metre) and then multiplying those two numbers together.

So, in this case, you would take 20 cm divided by 100 to get 0.2 metres and you would take 30 cm divided by 100 to get 0.3 metres. Then, you would multiply these two numbers together (0.2 x 0.3 = 0.06) to find out that the book takes up 0.06 square metres of space.

All in all, a square metre is just a way that we use to talk about how much space something takes up. Remember the magic carpet example and you'll be a pro at understanding square metres in no time!