Surface Area: Interactive Math Notebooks

We didn't spend a lot of time on Surface Area after all the time we spent on area, perimeter, and volume.  I really just wanted the kids to understand the concept of it, not necessarily how to find it.  We will get to that later in the year.  So, in order to demonstrate the idea of surface area, I wrapped a box in wrapping paper to show that we needed to know how much paper to use to cover the box.  I also gave each student a net for a rectangular prism and asked them to color just one side to represent wrapping paper.  Then out came the interactive math notebooks!  We creased each net and glued them into our notebooks so that when they flip to that page, they can easily fold it back up to look like a 3-D shape!  Here is an example:

Because we just finished up volume, we made a T chart in order to make comparisons between volume and surface area.  I told the kids to think about a tool box or toy box to tell the difference.  Here is what we came up with as a class:

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 Well, there ya have it!  A quick and easy day!  Thank goodness for math notebooks!