UNIT PREPARATION

Display the class number line (0–130) where students can see and reach it with a pointer.

Attach a desk number line (0–100) to each student's desk to use throughout the year.

Display the Math Practices page where all students can see it.

Have the following tools readily available for the Daily Practice and Problems items in this unit.

LESSON SESSIONS DESCRIPTION SUPPLIES

LESSON 1

Cubes

 1 Students investigate shapes made with four or five connecting cubes. They describe the shapes of buildings made with cubes.
  • heavy paper
  • connecting cubes
  • centimeter ruler

LESSON 2

Building Plans in Cubeland

 2–3 Students create blueprints (building plans) and construct buildings from the plans. They explore strategies for finding the volume of their buildings. Number sentences are used to express the volume.
  • connecting cubes

LESSON 3

Architects in Cubeland

 1–2 Students pretend to be teams of architects who work in Cubeland. Each team designs and constructs a building, records the design on a building plan, and writes number sentences to fit their building plan. Architect teams exchange plans and construct copies of one another's buildings.
  • connecting cubes
  • sample cube buildings from Lesson 2

LESSON 4

Buildings and Plans

 2–3 Students develop their spatial visualization skills while constructing buildings using pictures of the buildings. They identify the correspondence between building plans and the matching pictures. Students continue to explore strategies for finding volume.
  • connecting cubes

LESSON 5

Buildings and Problems

 2 Students solve problems with buildings made of cubes. They construct buildings with a specified building plan and number of cubes. They also construct buildings given a building plan, its height, and its volume.
  • connecting cubes

LESSON 6

Partitioning with Volume

 1 Students write number sentences to describe the different ways to partition a number of cubes in a building plan. Applying the commutative and associative properties of addition, they write true number statements that show how the various ways of partitioning the cubes still result in the same total volume.
  • connecting cubes

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Suggested Titles

  • Hutchins, Pat. Clocks and More Clocks. Aladdin Books, New York, 1994.
  • Older, Jules. Telling Time. Charlesbridge, Watertown, MA, 2000.
  • Silverstein, Shel. "Keepin' Count." In Falling Up. HarperCollins, New York, 1996.

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Suggested Titles

  • Thompson, Charles S. and John Van de Walle. "A Single-Handed Approach to Telling Time." Arithmetic Teacher, 28 (8), pp. 4–9. National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Reston, Va, 1981.