Volume Worksheet

Volume is the amount of space a solid figure takes up, and in fifth grade it stops being a vocabulary word and becomes something students can calculate. This volume worksheet builds the idea the way the standards do: a right rectangular prism is a box of unit cubes, and multiplying the length by the width by the height counts every cube at once. Once that clicks, a student can look at any labeled box — a shipping carton, a fish tank, a moving crate — and know exactly how much it holds.

The sheet is built in two parts that ask for different kinds of thinking. Part A gives four labeled prisms drawn in the standard textbook view, with the length, the width and the height marked on their own edges; students multiply the three dimensions and write the answer beside the printed cubic unit, so labeling the unit is part of the task rather than an afterthought. Part B is where this rectangular prism worksheet turns the skill around. One problem gives the volume and two dimensions and asks for the third, which means dividing rather than multiplying, and the last problem asks students to judge someone else’s claim and explain how they know. A full answer key is on the second page.

What’s Included

• 1 print-ready PDF worksheet
• Answer key
• 4 labeled rectangular prisms in Part A, each in a different unit
• 2 multi-step word problems in Part B, including a written explanation

Three things make this volume worksheet work in a fifth-grade classroom. First, every prism is drawn to scale in the standard three-dimensional view, so students read the three dimensions off the diagram instead of being handed a bare number sentence. Second, the four prisms use four different units — centimeters, inches, feet and meters — so students practice attaching the correct cubic unit every single time, which is the part that costs marks on a test. Third, Part B moves past plug-and-chug: solving for a missing dimension and defending an answer in writing are exactly the kinds of items an end-of-year assessment uses.

Teachers and parents can make volume physical in a few minutes. Build a prism out of centimeter cubes or sugar cubes, count the cubes, then check the count against length times width times height. Measure a cereal box or a shoebox with a ruler and compute how much it holds. Fill a rectangular container with water using a measuring cup and compare the result to the calculation. Ask students to find two different boxes with the same volume, which is the exact reasoning the last problem on this sheet asks for. And play the Have Fun Teaching Volume Song while the cubes come out.

Related Resources

• Volume Rectangular Prisms Worksheet
• Volume Word Problems Worksheet
• Volume Cubes Worksheet
• Volume Song (Have Fun Teaching)