Teaching Cubes

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.

 

 

 

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