Playing With Cubes

Getting to know a little about CUBES is important. Children need to have experience with numbers. Square numbers are good to be familiar with too and so are cubes. The problem with a lot of base 10 blocks is they represent cubes as...well, cubes. Which makes sense except that then the manipulatives are limited to the third power then. How do you show powers past 3? Simple you don't.


Here are the first 12 written out. But certainly DON'T just write them out as a drill until AFTER you have built them and talked about them and played with them a bit first. Here is a vid called Crewton Ramone Squares, Cubes and Division because it's about squares cubes and division. I'm creative like that.

Mortensen Math keeps it in two dimensions. Arithmatic not physics. (x)(x²) = x³ or (x²)(x) = x³ instead of (x)(x)(x) = x³ this is a subtle but important distinction which allows me to teach very young students higher powers and so called more advanced mathematics.

Before you get to cubes might be a good idea to play with squares and square numbers. My students will write them out several times during a course of lessons. So they see the numbers and have some experience with them. This will stand them in good stead when they take standardized tests. Many students get through high school without ever knowing their squares and cubes and at Crewton Ramone's house of math we go all the way to 25 with these. (And out to 20x20 on the multiplication tables.) Seriously, your kids know the names of the Pokemons but they don't know the name of 17² or 17³...or maybe it's all the characters in Harry Potter...or they can recite lines from Twilight, but you get the idea.

Squares and cubes should be familiar and easy and part of their instant recall just like 2x2 or 10x10x10...and make sure you eventually go out to 25. You have 12 years to get this accomplished. Here is a short video where Sarah and I are studying for her GED and cubes make their appearance...we only go to 12 here.