Cube Folding
A flat net can close into a cube, but some faces will never touch. Can you track where every edge and face goes?
Explore the Cube
Turn the cube and tap every flat face. How many different faces can you find?
Drag to rotate the cube and find all 6 faces!
Adjacent Faces
Adjacent faces share an edge. Every face on a cube touches exactly 4 other faces.
Adjacent = Touching
If two faces share an edge, they are adjacent. The front face touches the top, bottom, left, and right faces, but NOT the back face!
Tap any face to see its adjacent faces glow green:
Tap any face on the cube to see which faces are adjacent (touching) to it.
How many faces are adjacent to any single face on a cube?
Opposite Faces
Opposite faces never touch. They sit directly across from each other and never share an edge.
3 Opposite Pairs
A cube has exactly 3 pairs of opposite faces:
• Front ↔ Back (Face 1 ↔ Face 2)
• Top ↔ Bottom (Face 3 ↔ Face 4)
• Left ↔ Right (Face 5 ↔ Face 6)
The yellow face is highlighted. Rotate the cube and tap the face OPPOSITE to it!
The yellow face is highlighted. Rotate the cube and tap the face OPPOSITE to it!
Open the Cube
Unfold the cube into a flat net. Imagine cutting along some edges and opening every face.
3D to 2D
A cube net is what you get when you unfold a cube into a flat shape. It has all 6 faces laid out flat, still connected by edges. You can fold it back up to make the cube again!
First unfold the cube, then fold it back:
Task 1: Drag the slider to unfold the cube into a flat net!
📦 Fully folded! It is a cube!
Track the Faces
Track where each face moves. Use the unfolder to experiment, then answer the question.
📦 Fully folded! It is a cube!
Looking at the net: which face is opposite to Face 2 (Front)?
Can It Fold?
Decide which nets can fold into a cube. Some arrangements overlap when folded. There are exactly 11 valid cube nets.
Valid Net Rules
A valid cube net must:
• Have exactly 6 squares
• All squares must be connected (sharing edges)
• When folded, no faces overlap
• No more than 4 squares in a row
Which of these shapes is a valid cube net?
Tap the shape that CAN fold into a cube:
The Folding Challenge
Find the opposite faces. Apply what you learned to this different net layout.
New Net Layout
A
B
C
D
E
F
B-C-D-E form a row. A is above C. F is below C.
Which face is opposite to Face C?