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What is it?
If you and your students have transformed more quadrilaterals than you care to remember, then this is the resource for you. For, what better thing in the world is there to transform but everyone’s favourite canine friend? Translate the wandering dog, reflect the ice skating dog, rotate the Aussie dog, and enlarge the greedy dog, all whilst practising the fundamental transformation skills students will need for GCSE maths. There are more vertices than on standard shapes that students usually transform, so the challenge all the better. Full answers are provided, along with the original Excel file that allows you to easily adapt each of the transformations to produce an infinite number of varieties.

How can it be used?
It will come as no surprise that I am going to suggest using the worksheets to help students practice the basics of transformations. The fact that the object being transformed is different to usual may inject a bit of much needed variety into the world of transformations. But with the accompanying Excel file, you can take things even further. Being able to project the dog onto the interactive whiteboard allows you to ask questions such as: if I add one the the number at the bottom of the vector, what will happen to the dog? What would I need to change the translation to so the dog’s nose is at (4, -3)? Or, what if I change the angle of rotation to 180°? Students can then consider the answer, discuss it with their partner, and then you can reveal it stantly, without the need to print out extra sheets. This resource really is the top dog.

Thanks so much for sharing
Craig Barton

Download: Dog Transformations
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