standard_description: Understand that a two-dimensional figure is similar to another if the second can be obtained from the first by a sequence of rotations, reflections, translations, and dilations; given two similar two-dimensional figures, describe a sequence that exhibits the similarity between them.
problem_activity: Warm-up
This task helps students think strategically about what kinds of transformations they might use to show two figures are congruent. Being able to recognize when two figures have either a mirror orientation or rotational orientation is useful for planning out a sequence of transformations.
Launch
Provide access to geometry toolkits. Allow for 2 minutes of quiet work time followed by a whole-class discussion.
Student Facing
All of these triangles are congruent. Sometimes we can take one figure to another with a translation. Shade the triangles that are images of triangle
\(ABC\)
under a translation.
[IMG]
Student Response
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Anticipated Misconceptions
If any students assert that a triangle is a translation when it isn’t really, ask them to use tracing paper to demonstrate how to translate the original triangle to land on it. Inevitably, they need to rotate or flip the paper. Remind them that a translation consists only of sliding the tracing paper around without turning it or flipping it.
Activity Synthesis
Point out to students that if we just translate a figure, the image will end up pointed in the same direction. (More formally, the figure and its image have the same mirror and rotational orientation.) Rotations and reflections usually (but not always) change the orientation of a figure.
For a couple of the triangles that are not translations of the given figure, ask what sequence of transformations would show that they are congruent, and demonstrate any rotations or reflections required.


aligns: no