Don't you just love it when good ideas seem to smack you right in the face? Well, thats what happened to me while I was eating my granola bar breakfast. Last week we started our unit on finding volume of rectangular prisms and while I was getting my granola bar out of the box, ta da! A rectangular prism was staring me right in the face. Then it dawned on me, I could have my students find the volume of rectangular prisms that they see each and every day.
I spend the rest of my morning searching for rectangular prisms in my classroom, my partners classroom and even my teacher bff's classroom. I found a total of 10 boxes and I knew exactly what what was going to happen during math today.
After modeling finding the volume of my granola bar box, my students rotated through three centers where they would find the volume of rectangular prisms.
At the frist center students measured the length, width and height of the boxes using inches. I found that this was a great review for my students how how to property use and read a ruler. Once they got their measurements it was time to find the volume. I did not allow my students to use calculators because I wanted them to review multiplying decimals.
The second center was similar to the first, but students measured the rectangular prisms using centimeters. Again, this was great practice for using the ruler properly and multiplying decimals.
Finally, in the third center students measured rectangular prisms with cubes. By allowing my students to work with different sized rectangular prisms using different measurements it was easy for me to see who had mastered finding length, width and height as well as who had mastered the art of labeling the volume of a rectangular prism.
You can grab the graphic organizer that I used in my classroom here!
If you are interested in more volume resources, grab my Volume Task Cards Here! This is my very first Digital Google Classroom resource and I can't wait to see your feedback. I hope your Monday was sweet and your Tuesday is even sweeter!
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