Volumeville: A Hands-on Project for Volume

This project is the perfect final assessment for your volume unit.  Volumeville will have your students out of their seats, working together, and showing their creativity to create a 3D city/village.  

Volumeville has students tasked with creating a 3D community. They will be challenged to use nets to create both rectangular prisms as well as composite rectangular prisms to build their city.  They will have to calculate the volume of their community and there is even an opportunity for differentiation by providing students with a specific total volume that they have to create.  This is a great way to challenge students.

In addition to building a 3D city, students will create a key in which they will illustrate each building from their city along with its length, width, height, and volume so that they can continue to display their knowledge of calculating volume.

Printable and digital versions are included.

Need Help teaching volume?  Check out my volume resource pack.

Standards:  5.MD.4, 5.MD.5a, 5.MD.5b, 5.MD.5c

How Can You Use This?

Use this resource as a summative assessment for your volume unit.  Allow students to work in collaborative groups to create their Volumeville.  They will love the challenge and creativity involved and enjoy working with others.

Google Classroom Option for Distance Learning:  if your school is 1:1 with technology, or you're in the middle of virtual teaching for distance learning, you can use the Google Classroom version of this product.  You can assign student directions with the Google doc provided, which also has an audio component so that students can hear the directions being read to them.  A pre-formatted Google Slides template is available for students to create their Volumeville Key (they can also create their own from scratch) as well as an example they can preview of what a key could look like.  Grade all projects with the digital project rubric included.  This rubric will be assigned to all students so that all you have to do is fill in the values.  It’s even formatted to total up all the points while you enter them!  Save yourself some time!

Your students will be actively engaged as they work together to meet the challenge of making their project exactly 2,000 cubic cm and get even more experience using technology if they use the Google version of it to create a digital key. 

What You Get

Printable Version

• Detailed teacher directions for using this product with or without the Google Classroom option (screen shots of how the assignment may look in Google Classroom, etc.)
• student directions sheet
• student checklist
• project grading rubric

Digital Version

• A Google docs version of the student directions sheet
• Detailed student directions (audio link included in the directions for students with read-aloud accommodations) in Google Docs with a sample of the grading rubric for students to see
• Volumeville Key Template in Google Slides - for students who may need pre-formatting or guidance in creating their slides
• Example of a past Volumeville Key that students can reference
• Project grading rubric in Google Sheets – simply add in the values for each grading area and it will calculate a grade for you!

Testimonials

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ IF YOU TEACH VOLUME, YOU NEED THIS RESOURCE! I have bought my fair share of resources from this website and let me tell ya, this is a fan favorite!!! My students were SOOO engaged and learned SOOO much! My instructional coach was so impressed with how rigorous this project was. Assembling the buildings was tricky but it was definitely worth it!  - Caroline D.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ If you are thinking about doing this and haven't yet, stop thinking and DO IT! I was having a hard time getting my students engaged and keeping them engaged in volume. The BOOM, the volume project that takes the cake! I will teach volume using this project every single year because my students love it and so do I. The best part is, it teaches students the skills they needs to know to master the standard.  - Abigail B.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ LOVE this project. I've used it for at least the last three years, with students building each piece. This past year, I loved that we could do both digital and physical "building" (given that I had at-home AND in-person learners). The students had a great time!  - Robin M.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I could not get my students to stop working on this. It was so applicable to real life. I allowed the students to work in groups to make it even more engaging. I will always use this during my volume unit.  - MiddleofFifth

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students were so engaged in this that I was able to get so many other things done while they were working! They loved it and were ON TASK the whole class period!  - Nichole K.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ My students adored this project! I loved seeing how all of their little towns came out. It was the perfect real world application of the volume concepts we had learned in class! Kids were asking when we could do another project like this as soon as we finished, that's how much they enjoyed it!  - The Kozy Classsroom