Introduce reflections to your students with this inquiry activity! Students will follow simple instructions to reflect 4 different figures across the x-axis or y-axis. They will discover how reflections affect the coordinates of the pre-image.

Students record the coordinates of the reflected image in a table to organize their points. They are then asked to notice the effects of the coordinates when the figure is reflected across a particular axis. They will need to describe the effect of reflections on two-dimensional figures using coordinates.

The directions ask students to count distances of each point from the axis. However, you can also use tracing paper with this activity so that students get the conceptual understanding that a reflection flips the image.

The purpose of this activity is not to memorize a rule. Rather, the goal is for students to understand the effects that reflecting over an axis has on coordinates so they can make sense of the transformation.

Students use what they notice to make predictions about a reflection without an image.

This activity is part of the Rigid Transformations Introductory Activities Bundle!

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