week 20: platonic solids

We've all heard of cubes and pyramids, but what about icosahedrons and dodecahedrons? Learn more about platonic solids with this simple activity!

Materials: 

• Toothpicks
• Gumdrops/marshmallows
• The internet!

Directions:

1. Search up a list of platonic solids on the internet. There are five: tetrahedrons, cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, and icosahedrons. What do they all have in common?
2. Select a few that you are interested in, or learn a little bit about each one. How many faces does it have?
3. Use the toothpicks and gumdrops or marshmallows to construct your own platonic solids.

What's Going On?
Platonic solids are 3-dimensional shapes that all have two main characteristics in common.
1) Each face of the solid is the same shape. This shape has to be a regular polygon.
2) The same number of these regular polygons have to meet at each vertex. A vertex is a corner of the solid.
There are five platonic solids: tetrahedrons (made up of triangles), cubes (made up of squares), octahedrons (made up of triangles), dodecahedrons (made up of pentagons), and icosahedrons (made up of triangles).