Coordinate Plane Graph Pictures (March 21-24)

Mathletes had fun this week with their coordinate pictures.  We introduced all four quadrants in the coordinate plane.

(x,y) is the format of each coordinate point, where x is on the horizontal axis and y is on the vertical axis; remember, alphabetically: x comes before y, horizontal comes before vertical, and across comes before up.

The best way I know to get children to follow these rules is to think of the "x" or first coordinate as the numbered elevator and the "y" or second coordinate as the floor to which the elevator travels.  For example, point (2,3) is the second elevator from the origin moving up three floors.

Make sure before they begin their pictures that they are using a coordinate plane graph that is either horizontal or vertical based on the directions.  For example, if the picture is of a tall deer, you will be using vertical graph paper; if the picture is of an animal laying down, it will be a horizontal graph.  I will include both as part of the attached pdf.

The easiest pictures are in the first quadrant only (positive values for both x and y).  These are found in the attached pdfs for an owl, abe lincoln, george washington, polygons, christmas tree, santa, and a robot (the robot is in all four quadrants but easier due to its perfect symmetry). 

For more challenging graph pictures, go to http://bellevillebulldogs.tripod.com/id21.html

These pictures are absolutely amazing.

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Another cool web site with challenging pictures are at http://share4.esd105.wednet.edu/csaari/PointsPage.htm#Sissy

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The apple directions has some mistakes in the coordinates so avoid this one.

Have them look for strategies for finding the  coordinates points without counting each square each time by looking at the last point and moving over and up/down based on the next point; for example, if your last point was (10, 15) and your next point is (12, 13), just go over two to the right and down two.

As I told them, they will earn 20 Mathlete Dollars for each picture. Coloring the pictures would be preferred. Finally, it would be great to see them create their own pictures and then provide all of the coordinates to go with the picture.

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