Views of a brick

In your book, Maths Mela (Chapter 2), Rani, Jagat, Mini and Bholu play hide and seek. Rani is the seeker and the others hide: one on the roof of a hut, one up a tree, one behind a big plant pot. From up high, you see things very differently from how they look when you stand on the ground.

Bholu looks down at a tree from above. From the top, the tree looks like a round crown of leaves, like a big green ball, and the leaves hide the trunk. Jagat takes a photo of the same tree from the front. His photo shows the trunk standing up with the leaves on top. It is the same tree, seen from different sides.

Then Mini, Bholu and Rani each draw the same brick. The brick lies flat, and on its top face the maker has pressed the mark '7777'. Seen from the top, the brick is a rectangle with the '7777' mark in it: that is the top view. Seen from the front, you see its long side, a long thin rectangle: that is the front view. Seen from the side, you see its short end, a small rectangle: that is the side view.

So the three drawings are different because the children looked at the brick from different sides. An object can look quite different from the top, the front and the side.