Lesson 3

Dibujos y volúmenes de prismas

Lesson Purpose

The purpose of this lesson is for students to find the volume of a rectangular prism using its layered structure.

Lesson Narrative

In previous lessons, students built objects, including rectangular prisms, with unit cubes and counted the number of cubes. In this lesson, students continue to count the number of unit cubes needed to build a rectangular prism, but now they are presented with images of prisms instead of the objects themselves. To encourage students to develop a systematic way to count the cubes, they are shown prisms made from larger numbers of cubes. As students use horizontal or vertical layers to measure the volume, they make use of the layered structure of prisms (MP7).

Math Community

Tell students that, at the end of the lesson, they will be asked to identify specific actions from their “Doing Math” list (both teacher and student sections) they personally experienced.

  • Representation
  • MLR8

Learning Goals

Teacher Facing

  • Find the volume of a rectangular prism using its layered structure.

Student Facing

  • Usemos capas para encontrar el volumen.

Required Materials

Materials to Gather

Materials to Copy

  • Card Sort Rectangular Prism Cards

Required Preparation

Activity 1:

  • Create a set of cards from the blackline master for each group of 4.
  • Each group of 2 needs 48 connecting cubes.

Activity 2:

  • Give students access to connecting cubes.

CCSS Standards

Building On

Addressing

Building Towards

Lesson Timeline

Warm-up 10 min
Activity 1 20 min
Activity 2 15 min
Lesson Synthesis 10 min
Cool-down 5 min

Teacher Reflection Questions

What connections did students make between the different strategies they used to build the prisms and determine the volume? What questions did you ask to help make the connections more visible?

Suggested Centers

  • Can You Build It? (3–5), Stage 3: Rectangular Prisms (Addressing)
  • Five in a Row: Multiplication (3–5), Stage 3: Two-digit Factors (Supporting)

Print Formatted Materials

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Student Task Statements pdf docx
Lesson Cover Page pdf docx
Cool Down Log In
Teacher Guide Log In
Teacher Presentation Materials pdf docx
Blackline Masters zip