Cube Conversations
More Free Animated Math Lessons Coming Soon!
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Cube Conversations is a set of 80 (eighty!) animated lessons designed to promote visually rich math discourse. I’ve designed these lessons to invite many voices and vantage points into classroom conversations.
Much like Splat!, you control the animation with a few simple clicks – and each click presents an opportunity for students to see and discuss an image in new ways.
Of course, there is also a sense of mystery, much like what your students felt in Splat! The end of each slide includes The Reveal, when the answer is shown.
I hope your classroom will be filled with rich math talk, inspiring insights from your students, and moments of celebration as you guide your class through Cube Conversations!
Watch the video, download the lessons, and allow your students to amaze your with their visual math thinking.
***UPDATE: You can now download the 80 printable Cube Conversations pages here.
After reading this blog post, take a look at THE 12 MOST POPULAR MATH STRATEGIES AND DOWNLOADS ON THIS BLOG.
THE ANIMATED LESSONS
Level 1: “Single Layer Structures, Part A”
Grades: K-3
Level 2: “Single Layer Structures, Part B”
Grades: K-3
Level 3: “Twice as Thick”
Grades: 2-6
Level 4: “Texture Time”
Grades: 2-6
Level 5: “Challenging Structures”
Grades: 3 – 8
Level 6: “Increasing Complexity”
Grades: 3 – 8
Level 7: “Insightful Complexity”
Grades: 5 – 12
Level 8: “Giant Structures”
Grades: 5 – 12
Other Posts and Resources Which May Be of Interest
Splat! (over 140,000 free lessons downloads in 2017!)
The Fraction Splat! Series (with 20 more downloadable lessons) is now available!
Primary Tile Questions
3 Powerful Tile Strategies (and 40 new downloadable pages)
The Maze Hundreds Chart
Introducing Cube Connectors
Provide Massive Space to Notice
Thank you for taking time to view my blog! I’m learning as I go!
All my best,
Steve
Share this:
I’m a teacher taking a summer math institute and our teacher just directed us to your site. I’ve been looking for a way to include visual spatial reasoning, measurement, and geometry into my number routines and these are amazing! And I can’t believe they are free! You’re such a good person to share your gift of teaching math with the kids of the world! Thank you!!!
Ah, thank you, Liz! I hope you enjoy the materials, and I’ll keep posting many more!
Thank you so much for generously providing our classrooms with rich, exciting, meaningful math conversations! I am looking for more slide activities to target growing patterns like your “How many cubes in step 5?” activity. Are there more of these posted?
Thanks again, I am so grateful!
Hi, Samantha. I haven’t posted any new ones. This does make me wonder if I should create an additional post about How Many Cubes are in Step 5 for easier access and ongoing resources.
I’ve been using your work for many years in my classroom, and I love it.
Due to Covid concerns, I just took early retirement and I intend to tutor–remotely. I used to print out the cubes and have students color them in, and I’m wondering if there’s a way students might be able to use digital tools to color the blank cubes in to show their thinking?
I think they can do this with any screen annotation software. It’s a great idea! …and congratulations!
Do the Cube Conversions downloads work okay in Google Slides?
Yes, I wrote the Cube Conversations so they would work in both PowerPoint and Google Slides. I hope you enjoy them!
Steve,
I appreciate these rich visual thinking models and look forward to trying them in my k-5th grades. Thank you for sharing these as an engaging resource for teachers to share with students!
Thanks, Lydia! I’d love to hear how it goes!
I am wondering what grade levels you target. I am a technology integration coach, and I want to share your materials with our teachers. Are your materials intended only for elementary? Or would middle school and high school students benefit as well?
Hi, Aly. This is a great question. You’ve probably noticed that I have not specified grade levels in many of the materials because I believe they can be used so widely across grade levels. My background is elementary, but I am now a k-12 math coach. When you look at the materials you’ll feel like they have been written through an elementary perspective, because they really have been – as a starting point. However, I’ve written many of the materials to be used across grade levels all the way up through high school. If you look at the upper levels of Splat and Cube Conversations, you’ll have a sense for what I mean. I really think that almost everything in the blog can be used across all grade levels.
Hi Steve,
I love the cube conversations, especially for my kids who have trouble looking at the 1 dimensional representations of cubes when they’re asked to find volume.
And I especially love that the kids can share their “vision” of what they’re seeing.
A question about that though….if I’m using it on my smart board, and clicking advances the slide (or the reveal), how do you keep from “clicking” when the kids are up at the board showing their versions? Won’t it take them to the reveal?
Thanks!
Nancy Golden
Hi Nancy,
I don’t have a Smart Board right now, but if I remember correctly I think if you take one of the pens out of the tray, so it is in a drawing mode, that it won’t click forward.
Thank you so much for sharing all your wonderful resources! I worked with a 3rd grader today with this and he loved it- I can’t wait to work with my 1st and 2nd grade students this week
Yay! We loved Splat and now we have Cubes – so excited to use this wonderful resource and know that my students will love it too. Thanks Steve for your generosity in sharing this with all of us.
Hi, Nicola! I appreciate the comment. I’ll keep the materials coming!
Looking forward to using these on my New interactive panel. Thank you
Thank you, Tabitha! I would love to hear how it goes!
Very inspiring.
I am yet to try these with my learners.
Thank you Steve for your generous sharing of your hard work.
Certainly! I’m very happy to contribute!
More awesomeness from Steve Wyborney!
So great. Thank you!
Thanks, Brian!
Love this resource and I anticipate great math conversations, but I was unable to download
Hi, Kathy. Can you try clicking on the link, and then when it opens the next page, click on that link and see if it works for you?
Unbelievable and very exciting.
Thank you, John!
You have become one of my math heroes. Thank you for sharing…and for free. I feel like my students have come so much further since I have shared your lessons. They see math so differently now.
Thank you for your kind words, Donna. I’m so happy to share and to hear about how well your students are doing!
Steve, you did it again!
Another awesome way to get my 6th grade students who are not well exposed to geometry to dip their toes in the water.
Geometry, patterns, order of operations, even algebra can be easily accessed without struggle using this.
I’m thinking of sharing the Powerpoint in class while also giving students a chance to color in as many patterns as they can.
At the same time students should be asked to express in math terms their translation of their visual breakdown.
I think it will work well in my 6th grade multi-level mICT classes too. My co-teacher isn’t very visual, so I hope she enjoys the journey along with the kids!
Thank you so much, Frank! I’d love to hear how it goes!
Thanks for the great resource Steve. I am very excited to use this with my students when I return from break. Thanks for taking the time to create more challenging conversations.
Thanks, Tricia!