Session 3: Translating Squares

SREB Readiness Indicator Addressed: Draw with appropriate tools and classify different types of geometric figures using their properties (SREB Indicator #5).

Activity Rationale:Instruction in the middle grades should expand students’ understandings of the properties of both regular and irregular plane figures and culminate with students being able to perform simple transformations of figures in the coordinate plane. This activity lets you experiment with translation in the Cartesian coordinate plane.

Experience It!

  1. Go to

This launches Project Interactivate’s Transmographer.

You are going to translate squares in 2-D space. Read to explore the definitions of reflections, rotations, and translations.

  1. Create a new square by clicking New Square.
  1. Record the coordinates of each of the vertices.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Translate three units on the X axis by entering 3 into the first Translate box (make sure 0 is entered into the second Translate box) then clicking the Translate button.
  1. Record the new coordinates.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Explain how the coordinates changed.
  1. Create a new square by clicking New Square.
  1. Record the coordinates of the vertices.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Translate 2 units on the Y axis by entering 0 in the first Translate box, entering 2 into the second Translate box, and clicking the Translate button.
  1. Record the new coordinates.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Explain how the coordinates changed.
  1. Create a new square by clicking New Square.
  1. Record the coordinates of the vertices.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Translate 3 units on the X axis and 2 units on Y axis by entering these values into the two Translate boxes.
  1. Record the new coordinates.

A, indicated by black square ( , )

B, indicated by yellow square ( , )

C, indicated by green square( , )

D, indicated by turquoise square( , )

  1. Explain how the coordinates changed.
  1. How does the Transmographer’s ability to graph the translations facilitate students’ understandings of translations in a way that paper and pencil can not?

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