Using the Coordinate Plane

Last summer, I made this coordinate plane bulletin board for my 6th grade math classroom, with great intentions for its use....but...I didn't use it as much as I thought I would:-/

This year, however, it's definitely something my 6th grade students will need to use, for the following concepts:

• finding area
• finding perimeter
• finding distance between points
• for the meaning of absolute value, etc

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Coordinate Plane for Problem of the Week

So, I decided to start using it for a problem of the week type of bulletin board. The first question I put on the board is an area question.

I put five points on the board with thumbtacks and labeled the points (I altered my image a bit because the quality wasn't great, so you can't see the tacks or labels).

Then I tied together a couple of pieces of lanyard that I had in my room (I need to take some yarn to school) and placed it around the tacks to form the figure.

I'll have the students work on this coordinate plane problem throughout the week as they finish classwork, and then on Friday we'll discuss the problem as a group.

How else can the coordinate plan be used on a regular basis in middle school math?

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