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Face Painting
Age 7 to 11
Challenge Level 
Why do this problem?
This problem is a good way to explore properties of the
Platonic solids and gives children opportunities to visualise 3D
shapes.
Possible approach
You might like to get children making their own Platonic
solids using sheets of paper before trying this
activity.
This article shows you how to go about it.
Alternatively (or in addition) it would be useful to have some
Polydron available for children to build their own solids as they
work.
You could introduce the problem by asking children to
visualise the cube, asking for justifications of the minimum number
of colours needed before they are able to physically make it to
check.
Key questions
How many faces/edges/vertices does this shape have?
How many other faces does each face touch?
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