Lesson 20 — Activity 1: Rectangular Prisms and Cubes
Completion requirements
Lesson 20 — Activity 1: Rectangular Prisms and Cubes
Getting Ready
Have you ever noticed that many products you buy come in packages and boxes? Look at the products below.
Do you notice that all sides of each box shown are rectangles? If we took apart the boxes, they would look like this:
The boxes shown in the images are 3-D objects.
3-D objects are any objects that have a length, a width, and a depth.
How many 3-D objects can you identify in this image of a classroom?
3-D objects are made of faces, vertices, and edges. The diagram below illustrates the parts of three-dimensional objects:
A face of a three-dimensional object is any flat surface that makes up the object. Faces are common three-dimensional shapes, such as rectangles, squares, triangles, and circles.
An edge of a three-dimensional object is where two faces meet.
A vertex is a corner or a point where three or more faces meet.
3-D objects are classified as prisms, pyramids, or objects having at least one circle. The shapes of the faces determines their classification.
In this activity, you will look closely at prisms. Prisms are named according to the shape of their end faces or base. Here are the two prisms you will focus on:
Prism Construction
Have you ever constructed a building with blocks such as Lego? To construct means to make or form by combining or arranging parts.
To make a prism, you can use a net. A net is a flat figure that can be cut out and folded into a 3-D figure.
Here is a net for a cube:
Go to the assignment page to practise constructing both a cube prism and a rectangular prism.
Images courtesy of www.imagesgoogle.com and K&E Studio.