Archimedean Solids (3/4,5,23,24 and 25 K class)

Last week we studied Platonic solids, the only five polyhedron with all identical regular polygonal faces and all adjacent vertices are equidistant.

This week, I introduced the 13 Archimedean Solids which have more than one type of regular polygonal face and have the same vertex configuration. The children spend class time recording the vertex configuration for each of the 13 solids. For example, if you pick a random vertex from the Cuboctahedron, you will see that it is surrounded by two triangles and a square so the configuration is (3,3,6). Then they held the actual models of each solid and tried to count faces, vertices and edges. The challenge is to create strategies such as first counting the number of one type of polygon and then another. Also, looking at symmetry to double a calculation can be helpful. 

Give that there are 503 hours between classes this week, I also included the 2 dimensional nets for each of the 13 Archimedean Solids for the children to cut, fold and tape together. If bringing them into class is too difficult they can take pictures to show me. They can continue to count vertices, faces and edges. The document is 25 pages so you may want to just print what they will create. The other document has directions.