About Sounds

~programs and plans for Western Australian education~

Please note that the views presented here are the authors and may not represent the views of About Sounds.

These programs, plans and activities have been designed to be used in Western Australian classrooms. Links in Italics represent a free download. By downloading you have indicated that you agree with our download guidelines.

Plan by P. Easton © copyright 2007

Please note that the views presented here are the authors and may not represent the views of About Sounds.

Mathematics Space: Spatial awareness, Stage 3 to 4

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This plan is directed at a class in which most of the students have achieved the outcomes in level 3 of the Mathematics Space strand: Represent spatial ideas (represent shape), and are working towards level 4, which states: S 15.4 Attends to the shape, size and placement of parts when matching, making and drawing things, including making nets of 3D models that can be seen and handled using some basic conventions for drawing them.

The sequence of lessons provided here will develop prior knowledge by combining multiple numbers of cubes to form structures that the children will represent on paper and construct using nets. It is an important aspect of these lessons that a real world situation is incorporated to engage the students in the subject matter. The lessons will be based on the design and construction of apartment blocks.

The first lesson enables students to explore the effects of drawing cubes in different configurations of three, relating tactile materials (large wooden cubes) with drawings using isometric paper. The second lesson is intended for students to revise and practice the work of the previous lesson, but using four cubes rather than three. The last lessons will ask students to construct cubes using nets and build their drawn structures using said nets. 

This plan is designed to enable students to think about the representation of parts of a model and the building of represented models.