I am so fortunate to have wonderful staff support and coaches that locate all kinds of goodies for me to use in the classroom. So when my teaching partner and I began planning for our volume unit, we quickly asked for some web apps and sites that we could use that would help us to enhance the learning experience for our kids. The web app that we chose to use is from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives called How High?. This is a great activity for all levels because you are able to cross compare volumes between different 3-D shapes! However, since 7th grade math requires our students to understand volume of prisms and pyramids, we stuck with the rectangular prism.
The Lesson
The first task we had for our students was to simply predict the height or "how high" the liquid would be if we were to pour the liquid from one take to the next. We allowed for exploration without much reasoning behind the task.
After the kids performed this task several times, their predictions began to be more accurate! They even began to get excited and explain to me how they were able to make more precise predictions.
The second task was to make exact predictions of the volume. As a class, we discussed how several of the groups were were doing. Some well, others not so much. We then furthered our discussion to explain how the area of the base is important to finding volume. Upon completion of the discussion, we allowed for more time to make the most accurate predictions of "how high?"
Lesson Reflection
The lesson went extremely well! Students were engaged and were surprised that they were acquiring an understanding of a topic that is generally difficult. After the lesson, my students were able to explain how to find the volume of prisms and they were more excited to move forward with the unit and felt at ease as they were moving into a difficult lesson.
I enjoyed the lesson and would encourage this activity as an intro to volume. The only thing I would change is that I would probably set aside time prior to beginning the activity to have the students write about what they know and what they would like to learn about volume.
Lesson Assessment
To assess the progress of our students, we actively monitored the activity, viewed predictions make during each task phase. We then had students write reflections of the activity in their journals.
I hope that you have a new activity that can help ease the tension on starting your unit on volume! If you use this activity, let me know how it went in your classroom. Do you have some activities or other web apps to help students conceptualize volume?
Sometimes when we teach volume we simply just explain the equation of calculating it and never go in enough depth about why the equation works and what volume really is. I think this activity would help connect dots for many students! I like that you had students reflect on the lesson in their journals. The nice thing about NLVM is set up and clean up is minimal!
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