Building Creatures in Math - Uppers (6th)

One of the best challenges of being a teacher is to find hands-on projects to get students to engage directly with the thinking they have been doing and find ways for them to showcase their understanding. In Math 6, we were not only able to find a project to show the work we’ve been doing together but also something that felt more like fun than work. Students were tasked with creating animals out of cardboard and finding the total surface area and volume of their creations. Either with a partner or independently, students picked a creature, drew out their design, and created a plan for what supplies they would need. While building they needed to measure and record their findings to get their totals. It’s been a whirlwind week of building and measuring!

When asked about the steps included in creating the creatures, students had this to say:

“It was fun even though it was hard to find the area of different parts. It was worth it to be able to create the animals.”

“I think it was fun and challenging at the same time.”

“It felt pretty good, it was hard, but I liked it!”

“We’re not done, but it was pretty fun to make.”

“Starting it was the hardest part of the project, you didn’t know what you were going to make or how you were going to build it.”

“The most challenging part was building the animal, the math didn’t feel that hard.” 

Students faced many challenges during this project. They needed to find a way to create all the parts of an animal using shapes we could find the area and volume of. Some students took on the challenge of using toilet paper tubes as legs, which required them to use pi in their mathematical equations. Students used calculators to help with more complicated problems. 

Our final creatures include a giraffe, a red ant, a koala, a llama, and a dragon which will be shared at All School on Friday. Our sharing will include our final totals of both surface area and volume.