This is a task from the Illustrative Mathematics website that is one part of a complete illustration of the standard to which it is aligned. Each task has at least one solution and some commentary that addresses important aspects of the task and its potential use.

Use this three act task to get students thinking about surface area. Extend the task to create a method/formula for surface area of a prism.

Open Middle tasks provide opportunities for student to approach a mathematical task using different strategies and representations. They can be used as a warm-up/closing activity, as a formative assessment, or to facilitate discourse and discussion and get insite into student thinking and problem solving. These tasks provide a great opportunity for student to engage with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Open Middle tasks provide opportunities for student to approach a mathematical task using different strategies and representations. They can be used as a warm-up/closing activity, as a formative assessment, or to facilitate discourse and discussion and get insite into student thinking and problem solving. These tasks provide a great opportunity for student to engage with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Open Middle tasks provide opportunities for student to approach a mathematical task using different strategies and representations. They can be used as a warm-up/closing activity, as a formative assessment, or to facilitate discourse and discussion and get insite into student thinking and problem solving. These tasks provide a great opportunity for student to engage with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Open Middle tasks provide opportunities for student to approach a mathematical task using different strategies and representations. They can be used as a warm-up/closing activity, as a formative assessment, or to facilitate discourse and discussion and get insite into student thinking and problem solving. These tasks provide a great opportunity for student to engage with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

Students determine how much of each paint color is necessary to paint the room they are in. Students use their knowledge of ratios and area to accomplish this task.

This activity gives students a chance to visualize a two-dimensional net of a three-dimensional object. Students are shown three views of a decorated cube and a net of six plain squares. They must decorate the net so that it folds to a cube consistent with the views. An interactive applet is provided. Ideas for implementation, extension and support are included along with three printable sheets (pdf).

This activity gives students an opportunity to explore some of the common 3-D shapes and their names and properties. After discussion and an example, it asks students to count the required number of edges and vertices (corners) to build each of 5 given shapes. The Teachers' Notes page includes suggestions for implementation, discussion questions, ideas for extension and support, and a printable recording sheet (pdf).

This lesson plan utilizes the iPad to solidify student understanding of volume. This lesson plan can be adapted to meet any volume standard at any grade level. Students will explore different shapes and learn how to find the volume of shapes. They will create 3-D shapes using Tayasui sketches orAdobe illustrator. They will be able to create their shapes with technology and make a 3D model out of paper.Thumbnail resource: Teacher created thumbnail.