Little boxes
This is a level 3 geometry activity from the Figure It Out series. A PDF of the student activity is included.
About this resource
Figure It Out is a series of 80 books published between 1999 and 2009 to support teaching and learning in New Zealand classrooms.
This resource provides the teachers' notes and answers for one activity from the Figure It Out series. A printable PDF of the student activity can be downloaded from the materials that come with this resource.
Specific learning outcomes:
- Represent cube buildings on isometric paper.
Little boxes
Achievement objectives
GM3-4: Represent objects with drawings and models.
Required materials
- multilink cubes
- isometric dot paper
- Figure It Out, Level 2-3, Geometry, "Little boxes", page 10
See Materials that come with this resource to download:
- Little boxes activity (.pdf)
Activity
Students’ spatial visualisation can be further developed by having them use isometric dot paper to draw shapes that have been made with cubes. It is easier for students to draw models in this form if they have had experience building cube models from complete drawings first.
Students who have difficulty with isometric drawing will need to start by drawing a single cube.
From this initial drawing, the students can go on to add more cubes.
The greatest difficulty students have in working out how many cubes were used to make a drawn building is visualising the cubes that they cannot see. Experience in making and drawing their own cube building is vital to developing spatial awareness of hidden parts of three-dimensional solids.
Getting students to make cube buildings from other students’ drawings is an important part of three-dimensional work and encourages creativity and ownership in problem solving.
1.
a. 4
b. 6
2.
Answers will vary.
3.
Teacher to check.
The quality of the images on this page may vary depending on the device you are using.