Cubes that don’t join.
Two cm wooden cubes fit into this category. They are ideal for looking at volume and surface area and for solving spatial problems and therefore are most suited to upper primary and lower secondar students.
Please do not write all over them to make dice. Whiteboard dice (like in the Assorted Dice Pack) or Pocket Dice work better for that.
Cubes that join on one face
These include Unifix, Unilink and One-way cubes. These cubes vary slightly in terms of size but are typically two cm or less. They are ideal for younger students.
Cubes that join on six faces
Typically these cubes are 2 cm.
Maths Cubes, which are made of soft plastic and include different shapes on the faces. We sell them in ten colours for construction purposes (See construction set that has extra pieces and activity booklet), but prefer 4 colours for number and pattern work (less distraction). Ideal for Pre-foundation+.
Linking cubes (also 2 cm) are made from a harder plastic and require more fine motor skills to join them and pull them apart. They are ideal for older students from Year 4 on and we recommend buying them in four colours. With the addition of some mirrors (See linking cubes reflection set) a variety of spatial ideas may be explored.
Centicubes as the name implies are 1 cm, are hard to join and pull apart and are ideal for exploring volume and surface area as each face is one square centimetre and has a volume of one cubic centimetre. Definitely a cube for Year six plus.
Recommendation
I think you need at least 3000 of whatever type of cube you buy, roughly 100 per student 25 red 25 blue, 25 green, 25 yellow.
