In the previous lesson, students worked with figures that showed the unit cubes, providing them the opportunity to visualize the number of unit cubes and find volume in a variety of ways. In this lesson, the figures composed of two non-overlapping right rectangular prisms do not show the individual cubes. This encourages students to apply the volume formulas and make connections between expressions and the way the figures can be decomposed. Given an expression and a solid figure composed of two rectangular prisms, students determine how to decompose the figure to match the given expression (MP2, MP7).

What connections did students make between the different strategies shared? What questions did you ask to help make the connections more visible?