Middle School math is a critical time for developing core skills. It is a time when students can learn to love math or hate it. The coordinate plane is important for algebra and geometry. Use these fun and engaging activities to help students with Coordinate planes, so they learn to love their mathematical journey!
1. Don't Sink my Battle Ship
This classic game is a wonderful engaging activity for students in understanding how to plot and identify ordered pairs on the coordinate plane. You can use the actual game Battleship, or create gamified worksheets like these.
Learn more: Brittany Kiser (TPT)
2. Evoke the Inner Artist
Students will love to practice plotting ordered pairs and creating unique pictures by graphing images as all the lines come together into shapes. You can use this great mystery picture coordinate plane activity or even allow students to create their own mystery graphing pictures! Graphing points has never been so much fun!
Learn more: Kraus Math
3. Have an Ordered Pair Scavenger Hunt
You can get students interacting together as they try to find different ordered pairs that their classmates may have. You can make it a "I have, Who has" activity or use this great "Find someone who..." activity! How great it is for an introduction to graphing!
Learn more: Math in the Middle
4. Break Out the Apps
Let's face it, teens love app games! Use what they love to help them love math with this free app full of online digital math activities. This digital coordinate grid activity is sure to be hit across the middle grades.
Learn more: The Elementary Math Maniac
5. Go Big or Go Home
Get students into groups or make it a partner activity. Let them graph and build one large or a group of small buildings! Each group can work to make different types of buildings on the grid activity until the whole class has finished then the activity to create a city that is based completely on graphing images on the coordinate plane!
Learn more: Digital: Divide & Conquer
6. Bring out the inner Picasso
Students can show what they have learned about slope, intercepts, linear equations, and more with this coordinate grid activity that involves creating a beautiful abstract stained glass activity in class.
Learn more: Hello Learning Resources
7. BINGO
Use a fun BINGO game like this one to review quadrants on a coordinate plane. Make it more advanced by having ordered pair locations where students need to find a specific picture or item on their plane instead of just within specific quadrants.
Learn more: Out of the Mill
8. Get Physical: Walk the Line
Build a giant coordinate plane and get students to walk the grid. Students will receive a set of ordered pairs, then walk to that point on the grid to place their point. Everyone will enjoy this active exploration of graphing skills.
Learn more: Apples and Bananas Education
9. Four in a Row
Another fun activity based on popular board games is connecting for in a row. Here you also use a printable coordinate plane, a pair of dice, two colored pens, and partners. Each partner rolls the dice to get their coordinates, then they plot them using their color. First to four in a row wins!
Learn more: Panicked Teacher
10. Coordinate Cities
Let students work with a large sheet of paper coordinate grid or poster coordinate grid. Students will then design and create a town that is named after themselves and has buildings showcasing their interests and activities by graphing images. Students will need to graph lines and shapes on the grid to create their city map. What a fun extension activity or review activity!
Learn more: Middle School Math Man
11. Make Notes Fun with Matching
Interactive notes have an excellent effect on student learning, so use cute matching puzzles as a coordinate plane activity to identify and connect concepts in student notebooks instead of just writing notes!
Learn more: Kraus Math
12. Make Practice Interactive
Make coordinate plan activities super interactive for math students by using these awesome coordinate plane pegboards! You can use it to give questions for students, make a game or race of it, or just use it to have fun with graphing practice!
Learn more: Education Orchard
13. Game it up!
Use digital math game websites for older students such as Math Nook, a website with tons of coordinate grid games for all grades! This online game website makes math fun for geometry students!
Learn more: Math Nook
14. Get Geogebra
This awesome website with easy-to-use digital math tools has a digital app as well! You can use it to create digital activities or use pre-made digital activities found on the website resources. There is so much that can be done in this one digital place.
Learn more: Geogebra
15. Create a Math Escape Room
Escape rooms are all the rage, so why not use them to engage teens in math! Coordinate grid activities and skills can easily be transferred into this kind of activity.
Learn more: Bespoke Classroom and Teaching Ideas
16. Create a Math Mystery
You can use Powtoon, Canva, or even PowerPoint to set up a video introduction, then give students a series of coordinate plane activities to solve in order to retrieve the next in a series of clues from you and solve the mystery. These are great for differentiation as different levels of challenge can be assigned for each skill depending on student readiness! Math mysteries are fun partner activities and can serve as supplemental activities or review activities.
Learn more: Mrs. J's Resource Creations
17. Use Desmos
Another awesome math website with online digital math tools is Desmos! Some amazing artistic creations have been the result of using the free tools on Desmos.
Learn more: Desmos
18. BOOM It!
Create some Boom cards! Middle Schoolers will love this digital activity! It can be a review or introduction depending on how you create the cards. If you do not want to create your own, you can see what others have created on Boom for purchase here.
Learn more: What Is Boom Cards and How Does It Work For Teachers?
19. Use Guided Notes
Create guided notes handouts to help middle school students interactively connect with the concepts they are learning! In guided notes, the teacher orders and prepares the background information and standard cues on the handout, but leaves blanks for students and spaces for students to fill in, draw, make connections, etc. as the concepts are covered in class. This approach makes note-taking more engaging and also keeps students from being overwhelmed during the note-taking process!
Learn more: Make Sense of Math
20. Break out the Board Game!
In the fun board game, Cross Town Coordinates, students can learn and practice a variety of coordinate plane mathematical skills in the context of the real world. This relatable and interesting game can be found for purchase here!
Learn more: Board Game Geek
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