In this activity you can work with your child or have several children work in groups. Have your child build a structure with six cubes. These can be colored blocks, or commercially produced snap together cubes. To give children even more hands-on experience, have them cut and paste cubes out of construction paper using this pattern. Remember when the children are building their cube structures, the cubes must share whole surfaces (no partial overlaps).
Then, using grid paper, make three silhouettes of the structure: one from the front, one from the left side, and one from the top. Be sure to label the silhouettes.
Here are some questions to think about:
- What do you think determines whether a set of silhouettes will be unique?
- Is there only one structure that fits a set of silhouettes, or are there many structures?
- How can you devise a structure with six cubes so that all four silhouettes are identical? (There are at least two.)
- Suppose the silhouettes were not labeled top, front and side. could you still reconstruct the structure? How?
Trade your set of silhouettes with each other or with another group. See if you can reconstruct their structure fom the silhouettes.