In this lesson, students practice using the exponents "2" and "3 to express products that describe surface areas and volumes of cubes. They also use exponents to write square units and cubic units.

Students begin by writing numerical expressions to represent the surface areas and volumes of cubes with whole-number side lengths. Then, they generalize their observations to write variable expressions for the surface area and volume of any cube. 

As they write numerical expressions, students practice looking for and making use of structure (MP7). They also practice looking for and expressing regularity in repeated reasoning (MP8) to write formulas for the surface area and the volume of a cube.

Math Community
The goal of today’s exercise is to use the suggestions from the previous exercise to revise the “Norms” sections of the Math Community Chart and to invite students to reflect on one norm that will be a strength for them. Both activities begin to build shared accountability for and investment in the classroom norms.