Explore the Coordinate Grid
10 min
Narrative
The purpose of this Notice and Wonder is for students to discuss the coordinate grid. Students have used a grid in previous grades but this is the first time they have seen the horizontal and vertical axis highlighted and numbered. The expectation is that students will focus their attention on these numbers and their significance.
Launch
- Groups of 2
- Display the image.
- “What do you notice? What do you wonder?”
- 1 minute: quiet think time
Teacher Instructions
- “Discuss your thinking with your partner.”
- 1 minute: partner discussion
- Share and record responses.
Student Task
What do you notice? What do you wonder?
Sample Response
Students may notice:
- It has numbers.
- There are squares.
- The lines with numbers on them are darker.
- There is only one 0 but there are 2 of the other numbers.
- Why are the lines numbered?
- Can the numbers keep going?
- What do you do with it?
Synthesis
- “What might we use this grid for?” (It looks like we could make a graph on it. We could draw shapes or points on it.)
Standards
Building Toward
- 5.G.1·Use a pair of perpendicular number lines, called axes, to define a coordinate system, with the intersection of the lines (the origin) arranged to coincide with the 0 on each line and a given point in the plane located by using an ordered pair of numbers, called its coordinates. Understand that the first number indicates how far to travel from the origin in the direction of one axis, and the second number indicates how far to travel in the direction of the second axis, with the convention that the names of the two axes and the coordinates correspond (e.g., x-axis and x-coordinate, y-axis and y-coordinate).
- 5.G.A.1·Use a pair of perpendicular number lines, called axes, to define a coordinate system, with the intersection of the lines (the origin) arranged to coincide with the 0 on each line and a given point in the plane located by using an ordered pair of numbers, called its coordinates. Understand that the first number indicates how far to travel from the origin in the direction of one axis, and the second number indicates how far to travel in the direction of the second axis, with the convention that the names of the two axes and the coordinates correspond (e.g.,<span class="math">\(x\)</span>-axis and <span class="math">\(x\)</span>-coordinate, <span class="math">\(y\)</span>-axis and <span class="math">\(y\)</span>-coordinate).