Line & Rotational Symmetry

This year is my first teaching line and rotational symmetry.  I taught this lesson in one class period.  I believe my students learned line and rotational symmetry at some point in elementary school, so the lesson went smoothly.  (However, my past students also learned that 1 is a prime number, and that rhombuses are tilted squares in elementary school.)

I put my students into groups of 4.  With their groups, students filled in their interactive notebook insert.  It was a table depicting each shape with space to list how many lines of symmetry and how many degrees of rotational symmetry each shape has.

Each group had a sheet of cardstock with seven shapes printed and labeled on them (square, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid, isosceles trapezoid, regular hexagon, and regular pentagon) and seven-ish sheets of patty paper.  Students were able to trace each shape, and then fold the patty paper to determine the number of lines of symmetry.

 

Each group also had a manila folder.  Inside the folder I had taped down seven 360-degree protractors, and then cut out each shape and attached it to the folder through the center of the protractor with a brad.  (It was also super handy for holding each group's materials.)  Students were able to spin the shapes to determine the degrees of rotational symmetry.  (This was very helpful for the pentagon and hexagon.)

Overall, it was an easy set-up and totally worth the little bit of time it took.