Last year, when I taught transformations on the coordinate plane to my pre-algebra students, it didn’t go as well as it could have. The activities I had felt clunky. My department had resources from previous teachers, and I just didn’t love them. The activities were hands-on, but the graphs were too small and the directions were complicated.
Students were getting the rules for rotations, reflections, and rotations completely mixed up.
My Solution
Here’s what I came up with. Three simple patty paper activities that will teach translations, rotations, and reflections. This means there’s only one manipulative to learn. You can find the patty paper I used here. The directions for all three activities are similar enough that students can pick up on the next activity on their own.
The best part is that my students had a much easier time coming up with the coordinate rules completely on their own. To learn reflections, they physically fold the paper and see the reflection. Same for rotations and translations – they can physically slide and rotate the patty paper to see how the coordinates change. I hope that this translates to a better, deeper understanding of the rules and how to use them.
After each lesson, I had students record the coordinate rules they found on a reference sheet. My plan is to let them use this throughout the unit and on their test. You can find my reference sheet here if you’re interested. (On TpT, but it’s free!)
Here’s what I used:
If you’ve never used patty paper before – yes, it is meant for hamburgers, but it also comes in really handy for all kinds of geometry. Here’s what I used: Patty paper on Amazon. Be aware that patty paper often has a waxy coating that can repel some writing utensils. Pencils and permanent markers worked fine for me, but regular markers were easily wiped off. You could also use tracing paper or parchment paper from the grocery store, but the patty paper works nicely because it is already pre-cut into squares.
You can grab the entire bundle of all four activities here. This bundle also includes dilations. The dilations lesson doesn’t uses rubber bands instead of patty paper. You can read more about how I teach dilations using rubber bands here.
Want more resources for teaching transformations on the coordinate plane?
You can find all my resources for teaching transformations here.
