Pyramids

We spent our first day of this unit talking about pyramids and triangles. Of course, we covered the Great Pyramids in Egypt, but we also talked about modifications of that idea----the ziggurats, pyramids of the Inca and Maya, etc. I had to go somewhere in the middle of the day, so I told the boys to figure out how to make three-dimensional pyramids from paper while I was gone. They learned a lot from figuring that out all on their own---for example, that a polygonal base determines the number of triangular sides of the pyramid. They also learned how different sizes of triangles produced different pyramid heights (and/or gaps between sides, if they were irregular).

When I got back, we printed out a bunch of templates and made a whole city of pyramids. We found the templates at this great site---it has pdf's of all types of pyramids for you to fold. You can choose how many sides you want your pyramid to have. There are also all sorts of other polyhedra to print and make. Really fun.

We absolutely devoured David Macaulay books during this unit---he's one of our favorites. Pyramid, of course, was for this day.

Somebody made a step pyramid with blocks. There's a tomb under it (see the circular entrance near the bottom).