Hexagonal Prism - Coffin Box (10/29, 10/30, 11/1, 11/4)

As a Halloween theme, we constructed hexagonal prisms in the shape of coffins. We learned to name solid prisms by the shape of their bottom (or base). This is a six sided base so therefore a hexagonal prism. 

Attached is a paper version of the coffin box that the children can staple to decorative origami paper or other hard stock construction paper and cut out the hexagonal prism. This is called a "net" (essentially, a two dimensional figure that can be folded into a solid). These coffin boxes can be given out as gifts and will hold eight pieces of small candy.

I gave the children hard stock of a small hexagonal prism net and a large size. The ratio of the small to the large is 2 parts to 3 parts. So we talked about how we can multiply 2 by 2 by 2 for three dimensions to get 8 pieces of candy. Then if we multiply 3 by 3 by 3 we get 27 pieces of candy and that is exactly how many the larger box can hold. I even created a box that is two and a half times the size of the smallest prism, so the ratio of the smallest to the medium size to the large size is 2 to 3 to 5. Therefore, the largest hexagonal prism box can hold 5 by 5 by 5 pieces of candy (125).

The children cut the SOLID lines of each net (12 cuts per net) and folded along the DOTTED lines. It would be easier to make the folds if you hold a straight edge and use one part of the sissors to "score" the dotted edge. It will fold very easily. The tabs are used for taping the rectangular sides of the prism.

The children have been challenged to make these hexagonal prisms and decorate them with numbers, shapes and color. The suggestions the children made were to decorate the prisms with prime numbers, multiples of numbers like 2,3,5 and so on.

The larger net pdf was scanned from an 11 x 17 document so if you have a printer that can accept larger paper, you can make more of the large prisms. Exploring solids can be so much fun.