Irving Independent School District Smart Solutions

Teacher material · Page · Unpublished in Canvas

Facilitator's Guide: 3D Modeling Overview

Canvas state
Unpublished

3D MODELING • TEACHER OVERVIEW

The Complete CAD Ladder: Draw, Model, Print, Decompose, Scale

Students draw a symbol, model it, design for a real body, break a familiar object into shapes, and finish by building a room to scale. This is the complete sequence. Teachers make calendar cuts locally.

OPTIONAL WHOLE-GROUP SLIDES

The Canvas pages and recorded videos are the independent and absence route. Download the 39-slide 3D Modeling Foundations deck · Make a Google copy when you want to teach Currency, Coin, Ring, and Favorite Toy from the front of the room. For Dream Room, use the separate scale deck and recorded walkthroughs.

  • Launch and skill ladder: slides 1–2
  • Currency: slides 3–8
  • Coin and CAD basics: slides 9–19
  • Ring and print thinking: slides 20–28
  • Favorite Toy: slides 29–37
  • Dream Room handoff: slides 38–39, then use the separate Dream Room resources below

The route at a glance

Week 1: CAD basics

Paper currency, then a 3D coin. Students learn the workplane, move, rotate, resize, align, Group, and Hole.

Week 2: Design for printing

Measure and build a ring. Teach flat bases, overhangs, slicing, and why a digital model may need revision before it prints.

Lesson 4: Shape decomposition

Favorite Toy teaches students to find the boxes, cylinders, spheres, and cutouts inside a complex object before they build it.

Capstone: Build to scale

Dream Room adds measurement, conversion, consistent scale, testing, and revision. It uses the prior CAD moves in one larger model.

Before students open Tinkercad

  1. Create your own Tinkercad Classroom. Use only the classroom links and codes generated for your class.
  2. Choose the district-approved join route. Tinkercad supports a teacher nickname plus class code and existing student accounts plus a class code. Test the route your students will use.
  3. Create Activities inside your class. Add Coin, Ring, Favorite Toy, and Dream Room. Attach a starting design only when the lesson calls for one.
  4. Open Student View before class. Make sure every Canvas file, video, assignment button, and Tinkercad direction works without your teacher permissions.

Official Guide to Tinkercad Classrooms

Grading and publication

  • Lessons 1 to 3 are 5-point Minor skill checks.
  • Favorite Toy and Dream Room are separate 100-point Major projects. Favorite Toy assesses shape decomposition and grouped construction. Dream Room assesses measurement, scale, and a larger finished model.
  • The full route uses both. If your calendar forces a cut, make that decision for your class. If you skip Favorite Toy, model shape decomposition with one real object before students begin Dream Room.
  • Dream Room Day 1 and Day 2 are formative and do not change the final grade.
  • Xello Add Skills is unpublished. Test district access, then publish it when assigning the check-in.

Dream Room teacher resources