Recently we memorized the cubes.
1 – 8 – 27 – 64 – 125 – 216 – 343 – 512 – 729 – 1000
But what do those numbers mean? Until today, the numbers were just a song to my third grade daughter. Now, she can visual what those numbers mean – with this fun Lego activity.
We built a one by one by one tower, which is just one small Lego piece. 1 * 1 * 1 = 1
Then we built 2, by 2, by 2, which is 8. Of course, Legos are not actually cubes – the height is greater than the length and width, but it’s close enough to give the idea of what the cubes mean. Visually, it’s length * width * height, or volume.
We continued on and made:
- 3 * 3 * 3 = 27
- 4 * 4 * 4 = 64
- 5 * 5 * 5 = 125
- all the way through 10 * 10 * 10 = 1000
When we went to take a picture, we realized that a few of them (3 and 4) must have been swallowed by the larger ones.
I have to say, we haven’t done as much hands on math in awhile (since we are past the K-2 grades). It was a nice change of pace and hopefully fruitful in her understanding.