Cubes on paper

Act 1

Watch the video:

What do you notice?
What do you wonder?








How many cubes would you estimate would cover the paper?
What is a number that you're sure is too small?
What is a number that you're sure is too big?

Act 2

What are the measurements of that paper?

It's called A4 paper. The cubes are 1 cm wide.

Its length and width measured with Cuisenaire rods. The orange is 10 cm long.



Now you can work out how many little white cubes would cover the paper.

Act 3

Here it is measured with rods:

Extra

You can see the paper cannot be measured exactly by Cuisenaire rods. The paper and the rods and hundreds don't fit exactly; the paper is a tiny bit less long than we've measured:

Actually, A4 paper is exactly 29.7 cm long and 21 cm wide.

Can you work out the exact area of the paper?