GSP!!!!!!!!! IT WORKS

I was working with my students today on squares and square roots. We started the lesson with finding the area and perimeter of different rectangles and squares. Then I gave the students squares with a given area and asked for the side length and perimeter. They all did fine until the they got to the square that had area equal to 110 sq meters. Some said 55 and others said 10 point something....maybe 10.5 they said. We then checked a square that was 10.5 by 10.5 and the area was to big. So others suggested 10.4 and the conversation continued.
I had GSP pulled up on the SMARTboard to see if we could make a square that had area 110 and then measure the side lengths. I was going to have the square ready, but I decided to see if they could create a square as a class. The initial response from the students was to just draw a square. I said how and they said with a ruler and pencil. I told them the program didn't have a ruler that we would have to do something different. One person said, "use that line thing and just do one that looks right." This brought up some debate about whether or not our sides were the same or if we had right angles. We used the measure tool and found that we didn't. We decided to erase everything but the line segment. I gave them a hint and drew a circle using the segment on the screen. From there they were able to create the square. They knew that radius would help them and they knew it had to be perpendicular. The most surprising part was that the students were telling me to make another circle. They wanted another circle that had the same radius with the center at the other end of segment.
After creating the square we measured the side lengths and area. We manipulated the square to make it match the squares in the exploration of area and perimeter.
The most amazing part.........these were Freshman taking Pre-Algebra extended. If you don't know what that means....they are the lowest 30 kids of the freshman class. They were able to figure out GSP and some were saying...."do we get to do this." I was shocked. I usually hear "I'm not doing this, it is stupid."