What do tin foil, surface area, and rectangular prisms make? A tin foil robot of course! This lesson includes practice problems about surface area, worksheets, a video explanation, and a reflection sheet.

A comprehensive site on Ancient Egypt, including sections on the lifestyle, geography, religion, and politics of the country.

In this lesson, students learn how historians think the pyramids were built and why they were built-as doorways to the afterlife for the pharaohs.

Students join Buster Baxter on a ancient Egypt, in this geography lesson. Students learn about Cairo, ancient Egypt, the pyramids, the Nile River, and relevant vocabulary terms. Then students write about what they've learned in the form of a postcard to one of the Egyptian children they encountered in the videos.

Geometric solids are explored in this video lesson. The tutorial defines and provides examples of six popular solids. Students can check their understanding with an assessment. [9:03]

Take a trip back in time with this exciting lesson plan! Explore the Egyptian pyramids with the wealth of resources presented on this site. Provides links to information, photos, and much more!

Explanation of surface area and the volume of pyramids, prisms, cylinders, and cones through examples and a video lesson. [1:44]

Get independent practice working with the volumes of pyramids and Cones. Each incorrect response gets a text box explanation and another try. Correct responses are confirmed.

Strategies to help students recognize main ideas and supporting details provided by a standardized test preparation site intended for fourth grade. Includes strategies such as Main Idea Pyramids, Number Notes, QAR (Question/Answer Relationship), Reading for Accuracy, Reciprocal Teaching, ReQuest, Selective Underlining, Semantic Mapping, SQ3R, and Summary Blueprints.

Zooming In On Figures

Unit Overview

Type of Unit: Concept; Project

Length of Unit: 18 days and 5 days for project

Prior Knowledge

Students should be able to:

Find the area of triangles and special quadrilaterals.
Use nets composed of triangles and rectangles in order to find the surface area of solids.
Find the volume of right rectangular prisms.
Solve proportions.

Lesson Flow

After an initial exploratory lesson that gets students thinking in general about geometry and its application in real-world contexts, the unit is divided into two concept development sections: the first focuses on two-dimensional (2-D) figures and measures, and the second looks at three-dimensional (3-D) figures and measures.
The first set of conceptual lessons looks at 2-D figures and area and length calculations. Students explore finding the area of polygons by deconstructing them into known figures. This exploration will lead to looking at regular polygons and deriving a general formula. The general formula for polygons leads to the formula for the area of a circle. Students will also investigate the ratio of circumference to diameter ( pi ). All of this will be applied toward looking at scale and the way that length and area are affected. All the lessons noted above will feature examples of real-world contexts.
The second set of conceptual development lessons focuses on 3-D figures and surface area and volume calculations. Students will revisit nets to arrive at a general formula for finding the surface area of any right prism. Students will extend their knowledge of area of polygons to surface area calculations as well as a general formula for the volume of any right prism. Students will explore the 3-D surface that results from a plane slicing through a rectangular prism or pyramid. Students will also explore 3-D figures composed of cubes, finding the surface area and volume by looking at 3-D views.
The unit ends with a unit examination and project presentations.

Students discover the formula for finding the volume of a pyramid and apply the formula to solve problems.Key ConceptsThe volume of a pyramid is one-third the volume of a prism with the same base and height. The shape of the base does not matter (including if it’s a circle), and students will see the same one-third comparison between a cylinder and cone.GoalsUnderstand the formula for the volume of a pyramid.Apply the volume formula to solve problems.

An astronaut's view of the pyramids in Dashur, Egpyt, accompanied by explanatory text.