Rectangular Prisons

I wanted to get a feel for whether or not my first graders had good perception and problem-solving skills, so today I handed them a box of three-dimensional shapes, some toothpicks, a few marshmallows, and said, "Make some shapes with what you have."

Amazingly, some of them even made spheres!

We were reviewing the names of the shapes and I realized we'd never really talked about rectangular prisms. So I said, "Say that with me: rectangular prism."

I held up the rectangular prism and asked, "What's this called again?"

The answer: "RECTANGULAR PRISON!"


Okay, don't go home and tell your parents we made prisons at school today.

Oh boy...