Mid year last year we did transformations in Geometry, but since I know it's a huge portion of CCSS for Geometry this year, I thought I would write about what we did since many are starting this school year off with it.
This page of our Geometry ISN covered Reflections, Rotations, and Translations. The left page went over what each of them meant and had an example.
The right side had the definitions along with a practice problem for each type.
The students easily caught on to Reflections and Translations, but had a more difficult time with Rotations. To get students to understand how rotations work and why a shape ends in the position it does took some time.
To help them see how shapes rotate I gave them the graph paper in the pictures and we drew different shapes on each graph. I then gave them each a blank transparency and Vis-A-Vis marker. Students placed the transparency over their graph paper, and traced the shape with the Vis-A-Vis marker. They would put their finger on the point of rotation and then rotate the transparency the correct number of degrees and in the correct direction. The outline on the transparency shows the students where the shape will end up. Then they would draw the shape on the graph paper. After doing the four on the page, they felt a lot more comfortable with rotations. Some no longer needed the transparency to do the work, while others relied on it a little longer. By the end they were doing rotations without any problems.
