Lesson 12

The purpose of this lesson is for students to build solid shapes from components.

In previous lessons, students created solid shapes out of clay and described, compared, and sorted shapes. In the warm-up, students notice similarities between rectangular prisms and develop their own name for rectangular prisms. Box will be used as the example in this lesson. Students create solid shapes from connecting cubes and sticks and clay.

• Gather and sort solid shapes in 2 groups to display: 4 rectangular prisms, including a cube, in one group and 4 other solid shapes in another group.

• Gather a variety of rectangular prisms, including cubes, to display.
• Use connecting cubes to create a shape that is not a rectangular prism during the activity synthesis, similar to this image:

• Each group of 2 students needs a variety of solid shapes and at least 12 sticks in 2 different lengths.

• Gather materials from:
  • Build Shapes, Stages 1-3
  • Geoblocks, Stages 1-4
  • Counting Collections, Stage 1
  • Match Mine, Stage 1
  • Shake and Spill, Stages 1-4

What did students notice about rectangular prisms in the warm-up? What new things did students notice about rectangular prisms as they built them in the first activity?