Triangular Prism

Triangular Prism lessons and worksheets

A triangular prism is a three dimensional shape with five faces. It has two triangular faces and three rectangular faces. Kids start to learn about this solid as soon as in grade two in the elementary school. For these young students the recognition of this shape is good enough, so that they can learn more about it in higher grades.

Right triangular prism is a rectangular prism cut diagonally into two pieces. A good example is a wedge or a slice of birthday cake.

In our daily life, there are many examples of shapes resembling a triangular prism. First of all, a camping tent is a very good example of a triangular prism. The prism, we use in the laboratory for dispersion of light, is another good example of this solid shape.

The slice of a birthday cake, a wedge, an axe are the other examples of this solid. Similarly the roofs of homes in many countries are good examples of triangular prisms.

This site contains basic introduction and deep explanations about finding volume and surface area of this key geometric shape.

There are the following main pages of this site where you can find key lessons and worksheets on drawing nets of this prism, finding its surface area and volume.

How to draw a net : This page contains informations and tips on how to draw the net of a triangular prism.

Surface area of a triangular prism : Want to learn how to find the surface area of this shape? Then visit this page.

Volume lessons and worksheets : Find lessons and worksheets on finding the volume of different types of triangular prisms.

Basics About A Triangular Prism:

Faces: There are five faces of this solid. Two faces are triangular planar and rest of the three faces are rectangles. There is deep explanation of each face at a time down below on this page.

Edges: An edge is the meeting line of two faces. This prism have got nine edges. Scroll down the page to learn more about this concept.

Vertices: A vertex is a point where two or more edges meet. A triangular prism got six vertices and each of them is explained at the bottom of this page.

On this site, you can find lessons and worksheets to learn how to draw the net, how to find the volume and surface area of a triangular prism. The four point criterion of this shape is given below:

1. Basic knowledge of its faces, edges and vertices

2. Determining its surface area by adding areas of all of its faces

3. Know how to draw the net of all types of triangular prisms.

4. Finding the volume by multiplying the area of a triangular base with its length.

Below are some common types of shapes of a triangular prism which can be seen in grade eight or nine math curriculums around the world.

First of all, students need to know the fundamental terminology of this three dimensional shape.

Fundamental terminology means; faces, edges and vertices.

Another key basic term about all the solids is how to draw a net. Similarly the net of this shape is also very important as it is very helpful in calculating its surface area.

The net of any solid can be obtained by cutting it along the edges and spreading all the faces to see each face individually as a two dimensional shape.

triangular prism images

what is triangular prism

triangular solid prism

All faces of a triangular prism - One by one

Below are the faces of a triangular prism, shown one at a time. Kids are urged to see the following shapes very carefully so that they can estimate the locations of all the faces of a triangular prism. What we have noticed at our learning centre that while finding the surface area of a triangular prism, kids face difficulty finding all the faces of the prism. Because there are not all the faces included in the surface area, therefore they get their solution wrong.

That's why we always make our students familiar with all the faces and their locations in a triangular prism. Same lesson we have explained below, so that every student around the world can learn the same as our own students.

Base of a triangular prism

Triangular prism images

Triangular prism with rear rectangle highlighted

Triangular prism with left triangle highlighted

Triangular prism with right triangle face

Hence, above are all the faces of a general triangular prism, one at a time. Students need to know all the five faces and their locations. This is very important to find the surface area of the triangular prism, as we need to find the area of each face individually and add them together to find the total surface area of the prism.

Edges & Vertics:

This section of the page contains some key information to learn about edges and vertices of this solid shape. Below is a key explanation to learn about the basic terminology. You can copy paste the same image or go down the page to print worksheets on the same concept.

Basics about a triangular prism. It have five faces, six vertices and nine edges. Elementary grade math students can learn these as early math advantage.

Now that you can tell all the basic parts of any type of triangular prism, let's do some practice on this concept by using the followin key worksheets:

Basic terminology - Fill in the blanks Worksheets - 2 on basic terminology