Unfold a real cereal box slowly at the front as pupils settle. Take two or three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. The flat shape is its net is the phrase to plant here, but let pupils find it first.

Cube and cuboid: light recap only, not a counting drill. Name two or three faces at the board (top, front, one side) so the solids are fresh. Cube has six equal square faces; cuboid has six rectangular faces in three matching pairs.

Cube net: pause on the Fold control. Ask pupils to track ONE square, say the front, and call out which face it becomes as it opens. Six squares joined edge to edge, folding up with no gaps: top, bottom, front, back, left, right.

Cuboid net: draw out the three matching pairs. Trace them on screen: long pair (top and bottom), tall pair (front and back), narrow pair (the two ends). Point up that the pairs differ in size, unlike the cube's six equal squares, so it is seen not just heard.

Have a real folded cuboid net in hand and fold it alongside the screen.

This round is for talking it through together — a pupil works the board while the class agrees or corrects out loud, then everyone folds at their desks.

Run it in two clear beats. Beat one (board): take a hands-up prediction — cube or not a cube? — then fold the cross on the IWB so the class watches it close with no gap. Beat two (desks): hand out one cube net and one cuboid net per group; pupils fold the real nets and lay a finger on a square to say which face it becomes. Pair a pupil who is less secure with a peer who can model careful folding. The failing arrangements come later in the Class Challenge — keep this beat on the folding case.

These are the practice questions — a pupil works the board, the class checks each answer, and everyone confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

Run the printed six-square arrangements alongside the board: pupils fold the cut-outs to verify each prediction with their hands. The straight line and the 2×3 block are the classic non-folders — let pupils discover the gap or overlap rather than telling them. The closing question is about reasoning why a layout fails, not reaching a number. If a confident class asks how many cube nets exist, you may share that mathematicians have found eleven distinct ones, but only as a closing curiosity — the win is the reasoning, not the count, and pupils are not expected to find them all.

Keep this brisk. Hold up one folded cube and its flat net side by side as a closing image of the flat-to-3D link.