While the lesson focuses on right triangles, this activity offers a great way to practice the area of all triangles through an interactive webpage. The activity begins with the class taking a square paper and cutting in in half; can they...

Shapes are everywhere in the world around us, from rectangular doors to the circular wheels of a car. The second lesson in this series opens the eyes of young mathematicians to this wonderful world of shapes as they search the classroom,...

The problem seems simple: find the area of the equilateral triangle whose sides are each length 1. In fact, this same problem is solved in 8th grade, addressing a different Common Core standard, using the formula for area of a triangle...

The hunt is on! Send young mathematicians on a search for shapes in the first lesson of this two-part series. Each time a child finds a hidden shape, he draws it on his paper, and continues searching for the rest. Perform this activity...

Young geometers and biologists investigate the math of nature in an activity that is just the bee's knees. Participants will study the tessellations of hexagons in a beehive, along with the natural rationale behind the specific shape....

Geometric shapes make great visual models for introducing young mathematicians to the concept of fractions. Looking at a series of four circles, learners are asked to determine whether or not one half of each circle is shaded. To support...

A complex question looking for the total cost of a stained glass window by calculating area and circumference of a circle. With detailed components, this activity will challenge your designers to figure out if they have enough money to...

With minimal setup and maximum freedom, young geometers are encouraged to think outside the box on a seemingly simple application problem. Though the task seems simple, measuring a given paper clip and finding how many 10 meters can...

Pairs work as engineering teams to design and build model bridges from drinking straws and tape. In this third segment in a series of 10, teams compete in an attempt to build the strongest bridge. To help with the design, the groups...

Learners are designing a stunning new water feature for an aquarium, but they soon discover that more than just a pretty home for their fishy friends is required.  From calculating the volume of a composite shape through the...

Add a sense of excitement to your math class with this race across the country. Using their knowledge of all things circular, young mathematicians work in pairs answering a series of pi-related word problems as they hop from one city to...

The humble soda can gets the geometric treatment in an activity that links math and science calculations. After a few basic assumptions are made and discussed, surface area calculations combine with density information to develop an...

Take graphing outside and make a giant coordinate plane to plot your human points. Young graphers are each given a coordinate for a particular shape and asked to make the geometrical shapes one by one. Those not plotted are to write down...

Every pupil with a sweet tooth will be clamoring for this lab and analysis, particularly when they're allowed to eat the results! Volume and surface area formulas for cones are developed from models, and then extended to the printing of...

Create a protective protein shell as a package. Using the included template, pupils tape together 20 triangles to create a 20-sided shape to represent the protective shell of a virus. The model of the protein shell incases the nucleic...

Now you'll never have trouble cutting a cake evenly again. Here is a set of five problems all about partitioning shapes into a given number of pieces and identifying the fractional amount of each piece. As learners progress through the...

Using their knowledge of right triangles, pupils find out how far a ship is from a light house. Class members determine how far around the world a ship would be sailing at a constant speed.

If cubism were a religion, would you follow it? Lower-level tasks focus primarily on counting the number cubes in a structure and relating the number to surface area. As learners progress to higher-level tasks, isometric drawings and...

Farming is full of mathematics, and it provides numerous real-world examples for young mathematicians to study. Here, we look at a cylinder-shaped storage silo that has one flat side. Given certain dimensions, students need to determine...

Provide your class some practice with the dimensions of geometric figures. Here you have a set of three different-shaped, stemmed drinking glasses with diameters and heights provided. Math-minded individuals calculate the volume of each....

The objective of this activity is to find the percent of the area of a two squares overlapping. Mathematicians find the ratio of area for the part that overlaps to the rectangle formed. The final answer is a percent as a rate per 100....

How can your draw three-dimensional figures on paper? The lesson shows pupils how to draw orthographic projections of three-dimensional figures composed of cubes. After viewing a PowerPoint presentation, they practice this skill with...

Investigate the effect of one-axis rotations on geometric figures. Scholars learn to use snap cubes and the right-hand rule to draw figures after rotations about the x-, y-, or z-axes. They try their hands at examples created by the...

Individuals discover how to draw cubes on triangle-dot paper. They use cubes to build structures and draw corresponding isometric drawings on dot paper in the second lesson of the series of five. The activity also introduces the concept...