Buildings and Plans

Est. Class Sessions: 2–3

Developing the Lesson

Part 2: Matching Building Plans to Buildings and Pictures

Match Teacher's Models to Plans. Display the two buildings you constructed in preparation for the lesson. Display the building plans and ask students to determine which building plan goes with which building. See Materials Preparation and Figure 2. Give student pairs an opportunity to solve the problem on their own so that they can visualize (or take apart) the building in their own way. Ask questions similar to the following as needed. Then discuss them as a class.

Ask:

How many cubic units are on the bottom layer in each model?
What is the height of the tallest column of each building?
How can you determine the height of the tallest column on the building plans? (It will be the biggest number on the plan.)
What is the volume of each building? How do you know?
How can you use the building plan to determine the volume? (I can add all of the numbers on the plan to find the volume.)
Write a number sentence that shows how you found the volume. Match your numbers to the cubes in the building.

Match Students' Models to Plans. Ask student pairs to create a building of their own and record its plan on a copy of the Building Plan Two Ways Master. Remind students of the rules for constructing a building:

All cubes must be connected.
No balconies or arches are allowed.

Have them write their names underneath the building plan. These students should conceal their buildings from the class. Collect these concealed buildings and show them to the class. Display the building plans.

Ask students to match the buildings constructed by their classmates to the building plans displayed. Review some of the questions asked about the two buildings you constructed at the beginning of Part 2.

Other questions are:

What clue helped you pair [student name]'s building plan with this building?
Did someone use a different strategy to pair [student name]'s building plan with this building?
Was there another strategy someone used, different from the first two strategies, to pair [student name]'s building plan to this building?
How are all these strategies different? How are they the same?
Did someone match this building to a different building plan? What clue did you use to make the match? Have you changed your mind? Why?

Questions along these lines will help students examine their own thinking. Sharing ideas and explaining and examining reasoning aloud helps students understand why various strategies work, and how they compare with their own strategies.

Match City Buildings' Pictures to Plans. Ask student pairs to construct a building for each of the building plans in the Match Up section of the City Buildings pages. Then ask them to draw a line from the building plan to the picture of their buildings. Encourage discussion. Have each student pair talk with another student pair to compare their strategies prior to a class discussion. Again, remind students to use the terms "units" and "cubic units" in their discussion.

Ask:

How did you know what to build from the building plan?
How many units tall is the building? (height of tallest column)
How long is the building from left to right?
How long is the building from front to back?
What is the volume of the building? (number of cubic units needed to construct the building)
Write a number sentence that shows how you found the volume.
Show us which cubes in your building are represented by each number in your number sentence.
Were you surprised at what your building looked like after you built it? What surprised you?
Were you able to picture the building in your head before constructing it?
What was hard in building something from the building plan? What was easy?