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Coordinates Grid

Shape & Space · Year 4–Year 6

Plot points, read the coordinates, then move the whole shape.

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About the coordinates

Tap anywhere on the grid and the nearest point is plotted, with its coordinates written beside it and added to a list down the side. Tap it again and it goes. The caption reads it out the way it has to be read: (3, 4) is three across and then four up, and the order is the whole of what a class gets wrong.

The list matters as much as the grid. A point on a picture is a position, but (3, 4) is an ordered pair, and writing them down in the order they were plotted is what turns one into the other. Press Hide to take the labels off the grid and the class reads the numbers off the axes instead.

Start in the first quadrant, 0 to 10, which is Year 4. Switch to all four, minus 5 to 5, for Year 6. Both grids are ten squares across so the squares are exactly the same size, and switching does not resize the picture under a class.

Join the points up and the arrows translate the whole shape, which is Year 5. A move that would take any point off the grid is refused rather than squashed, because a translation that changed the shape would not be a translation, and the board says how far it has moved altogether: three right and two down.

How to use it on your whiteboard

  1. 1Tap the grid to plot a point. Tap it again to take it off, and read the coordinates in the list down the right.
  2. 2Press Hide to take the labels off the grid and ask the class to read a point off the axes.
  3. 3Press On under Join up to turn the points into a shape.
  4. 4Use the arrows to translate the shape a square at a time. The caption says how far it has gone.
  5. 5Press 4 for all four quadrants and negative coordinates. Tap Fullscreen to fill the board.

Questions

Which way round do the coordinates go?
Across first, then up: (3, 4) is three across and four up. The caption says it that way every time a point is plotted, and the origin is named as the origin rather than as (0, 0) alone.
Can it show negative coordinates?
Yes. Press 4 for all four quadrants, which runs from minus 5 to 5 both ways. The squares stay the same size, so a shape does not change size when you switch.
Can I translate a shape?
Yes. Join the points up and use the arrows to move the whole shape a square at a time. If any point would leave the grid the move is refused, because moving some of the points and not others would change the shape rather than translate it.
Do I need an account?
No. Trove Tools is free with no login, no subscription and no limits.