Friday, 2/26/16: Laying Foundation for Coordinate Relationships in Transformations

We are now in Unit 4, which is on using transformations to establish congruence, using transformations to establish similarity, the Pythagorean theorem, angle relationships in parallel lines and triangles, and the volume of cylinders, cones, and spheres.

We're starting with transformations, of which there are four types:

• translations (slides)
• reflections (flips)
• rotations
• dilations (zooming in or out)

Students, parents / guardians, and tutors, as we move forward, there are going to be two key tools that will help students with transformations (in addition to the normal internet and textbook resources):
First, I've given each student a section of tracing paper (to be kept in the plastic sleeve with the class assignment sheet and used for the entire unit).  For many students this will be of significant help, using the tracing paper to mimic the motion.  Second, look for patterns in the ordered pairs (x and y combinations) pre-image (the before) to image (the after).  From the very beginning, I am going to be making my students record all of the ordered pairs, before-and-after.  The patterns they will discover there will really help them.

Today we set up a model A+ paper for an upcoming memorization quiz on the relationships of the coordinates of images pre-image to image.

Some students misunderstood my substitute's instructions yesterday, hearing that the work I had left yesterday was classwork.  Actually, all 28 problems on that Equations Practice #1 were intended as classwork / homework.  I gave those students who did have all 28 problems completed 5 points extra-credit, and for those who do not have all 28 problems done, that is the homework for the weekend.  This will be a 20-point assignment, four times the normal weight for an assignment, and I will be verifying completion of it Monday.