Talking Transformations: A Partner Activity for 8th Grade Geometry

Need a fun and engaging activity that helps your 8th grade math students practice their rotations, reflections, and translations? Talking Transformations is a great way to get your students describing multi-step rigid motion transformations to each other.

Each pair of students take turns trying to describe how a preimage is transformed into an image using rigid motion transformations. What's the catch? One partner must draw the transformations using only the verbal clues given by their partner without seeing the figures. They must rely on the description given by their partner only to be able to arrive at the final image. As an added bonus, each transformation puzzle gets more challenging than the previous one!

This activity is a great way for your students to practice their transformations vocabulary, as well as apply their knowledge of translations, rotations, and reflections. If used at the end of a unit on basic transformations, it is also a great bridge activity that connects rigid motion transformations and shape congruence.

Included in this lesson is:

• Complete lesson directions on how I run this activity in my classroom
• 8 Printable Transformation Puzzles that increase in challenge
• Printable Student Log Sheet
• Suggested solutions for each puzzle

I hope your students enjoy this activity as much as mine do!