Finding the Surface Area of a Cereal Box (Rectangular Prism)

Here's a fun MATH MEASUREMENT activity for kids that uses a recycled cereal box.

Surface Area is the measurement of the OUTSIDE of a solid figure.

Materials

• cereal box or other rectangular prism shaped box
• scissors
• pencil
• markers (optional)
• ruler

Directions _- Activity 1

• A cereal box bought at the store is a 3D Shape.We need to turn it into its NET (2D representation of a 3D shape).
• Empty everything out of the cereal box.
• Use your scissors to cut the box open. You may need to tape the top and bottom flaps back together because of the design of the box. Your box should look similar to the picture above with 6 areas. (front, back, 2 sides, top and bottom----all flattened out)
• Next you need to use a ruler to find the AREA for each box section. You could do the work and write the area(s) on each section of the box. Remember: Area = Length x Width
• After you have found the Area for each section, you need to ADD all the 6 different areas together to find the Surface Area!
• Voila, you now have the Surface Area of a Cereal Box/ Rectangular Prism in square units!

Directions - Activity 2 

This is an alternative method to find the surface area of a rectangular prism.

You could use the following Formula and a ruler to find the surface area of a rectangular prism

l=length,  w=width,  h=height

Have fun with math!