This displays the Getting started on page 261.

Bring some boxes such as cereal boxes, packets etc, to school for students to unfold to create the net.  

Talk about the fact that each face on the solid is a shape on the net.

Tell students that the machine at the “Packet Company” went wrong yesterday and chopped up all the nets into individual faces.

It is their job to put the faces back together to make a net that will fold up to make a packet.

Cut out the faces of some packets and boxes and put them into sets.

Give a set to each group of students to tape back together into a net to make the packet again.

Asking the students to make the container inside-out would increase the level of challenge since they would have no pictures or text to give them clues.

Ask students to secretly choose a solid in the classroom or school that is a 3-D shape they can name. For example, a building is a cuboid.

Ask them to make a model of this solid using only toothpicks and Blu-Tac.

Have students hold up their models for others to guess which solid it is.

This could open up a lot of discussion about hidden edges and views.

This displays a sheet with some photos of models made with multi cubes for students to re-create.

You could put students into groups and have a competition to see which group is first to make all the models displayed.

The winning group could share their strategy on how they interpreted the diagrams to make the models.

Take students on a journey around the school with a sketchpad.

Get them to stand in front and at the side of large objects like buildings, cars and billboards, then sketch what the view from that position looks like. Once they have drawn different views of school buildings they could vote to see who they thought drew them most accurately. Students could take digital photos, or schools with smart boards could use the comparison data on their boards.

Ask students to all make the same simple model that you have made.

Example:

Ask all students to have the front view facing them.

Ask what it would look like if the shape was squashed flat from the front.

Do the same for the other views to get a set of views.

This displays some sets of cards to print. Each set has a picture of a model, the front, the side and the top view. Shuffle the cards and deal them out to the group or class. They must find the four cards that go together to make the set by walking around asking “Are you part of my set?” and looking at each other’s cards.