Free · Ready to print · Letter & A4
Surface area formulas
Need a surface area formulas within reach? Print it for the wall, then hand off to the practice sheets below.
- Letter & A4 ready
- Nothing to fill in
- Reprint it any time

Reference chart
Surface area formulas
Cube
6 × s × s
6 × 16 = 96
Box
2(lw + lh + wh)
2(10 + 15 + 6) = 62
Prism
2 × base + P × height
2(12) + 16 × 5 = 104
Cylinder
2 π r² + 2 π r h
56 + 188 = 244
Cone
π r² + π r l
28 + 47 = 75
Sphere
4 × π × r × r
4 × 3.14 × 25 = 314
Surface area is the wrapping — every face added up, so it stays in sq cm even though the shape is solid. Unfold the solid in your head and add the flat pieces.
What's on this chart
Surface area is the one topic where the formula is genuinely harder than the idea. Every child understands "how much wrapping paper"; almost none can see where 2πr² + 2πrh came from. So the cube and the cylinder are drawn flat here — unfolded into the pieces you would actually add — and once a cylinder is a rectangle between two circles, the formula stops being something to memorise and becomes something to read off the picture.
Why this chart helps
The rectangle in that net is the part worth pointing at. Its height is the cylinder's height, and its width is the circumference of the circle it was rolled around — because that is the distance the roll goes. A child who unrolls a label off a tin has done this, and the chart is only naming what they did.
































