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Platonic Solids

Identify the names, nets and features of the five regular polyhedra.

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This is level 1: name the five platonic solids (regular polyhedra).

Here are the names to choose from: Cube, Dodecahedron, Icosahedron, Octahedron, Tetrahedron.

1

Polyhedron

2

Polyhedron

3

Polyhedron

4

Polyhedron

5

Polyhedron

Click the images to rotate them.

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This is Platonic Solids level 1. You can also try:
Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Level 5 Level 6

Instructions

Try your best to answer the questions above. Type your answers into the boxes provided leaving no spaces. As you work through the exercise regularly click the "check" button. If you have any wrong answers, do your best to do corrections but if there is anything you don't understand, please ask your teacher for help.

When you have got all of the questions correct you may want to print out this page and paste it into your exercise book. If you keep your work in an ePortfolio you could take a screen shot of your answers and paste that into your Maths file.

Why am I learning this?

Mathematicians are not the people who find Maths easy; they are the people who enjoy how mystifying, puzzling and hard it is. Are you a mathematician?

Comment recorded on the s /Indice 'Starter of the Day' page by Busolla, Australia:

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Comment recorded on the 19 October 'Starter of the Day' page by E Pollard, Huddersfield:

"I used this with my bottom set in year 9. To engage them I used their name and favorite football team (or pop group) instead of the school name. For homework, I asked each student to find a definition for the key words they had been given (once they had fun trying to guess the answer) and they presented their findings to the rest of the class the following day. They felt really special because the key words came from their own personal information."

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Did you enjoy doing this 'Platonic Solids' activity? Are you curious about who originally came up with this idea in Maths? Discover more about one of the mathematicians who is associated with this concept.

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Description of Levels

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Level 1 - Name the five platonic solids (regular polyhedra)

Level 2 - Match the nets to the shapes

Level 3 - Count the number of faces on each solid

Level 4 - Count the number of vertices on each solid

Level 5 - Count the number of edges on each solid

Level 6 - Discover Euler's Formula

More on this topic including lesson Starters, visual aids, investigations and self-marking exercises.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

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Curriculum Reference

See the National Curriculum page for links to related online activities and resources.

The diagrams of the polyhedra are licensed by Kjell André under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Glossary of Terms

Polyhedron (plural: Polyhedra)

A three-dimensional solid shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges, and sharp vertices.

Platonic Solid

A special type of polyhedron where all faces are identical regular polygons, all vertices have the same number of faces meeting, and all edges are the same length. There are five types: Tetrahedron, Cube, Octahedron, Dodecahedron, and Icosahedron.

Net

A two-dimensional layout of the faces of a polyhedron, arranged so that when folded along the edges, it forms the corresponding 3D shape.

Face

The flat surface of a polyhedron, typically a polygon, that forms one of its sides.

Vertex (plural: Vertices)

The point where two or more edges of a polyhedron meet.

Edge

The straight line where two faces of a polyhedron meet, connecting two vertices.

Don't wait until you have finished the exercise before you click on the 'Check' button. Click it often as you work through the questions to see if you are answering them correctly. You can double-click the 'Check' button to make it float at the bottom of your screen.

Answers to this exercise are available lower down this page when you are logged in to your Transum account. If you don’t yet have a Transum subscription one can be very quickly set up if you are a teacher, tutor or parent.

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