Why is a square number called a square number? - Moortown Primary School, Leeds

Using counters and cubes, we investigated what square and cube numbers are and why they were given those names. Once we figured it out, it became pretty obvious.

We can show why 16 is considered a square number by representing 4 x 4 as an array which creates a square.

We flipped it around to show that the square root of a number is show by the number of counters in each row.

We particularly liked the fact that cube numbers create an actual cube. 2 x 2 x 2 is 8 and there are 8 cubes making up the cube itself – wow!