Family Math Studio
Lesson 7.6 · Session 26.NOS.9
Determine Distance on the Coordinate Plane
Find two distances on the coordinate plane and compare them.
NameDate
Tonight's spark
A park map has a hub at G, (1.75, 8.25). Cruz walks straight to C, (1.75, 2.25). Dara walks straight to D, (−5.25, 8.25). One unit is one block. Who walks farther?
Guess first: Cruz goes down and Dara goes left. Who walks farther?
Try it
Work it out on paper. Write one answer on each line.
Which coordinate do (3, 1) and (3, −5) share?
- A. The x-coordinate
- B. The y-coordinate
- C. Neither one
My answer
Find the distance between (2, 6) and (2, 1).
- A. 7
- B. 5
- C. 6
- D. 1
My answer
Find the distance between (−4, 3) and (5, 3).
- A. 1
- B. 4
- C. 5
- D. 9
My answer
Find the distance between (1.5, 4) and (1.5, −2.5).
- A. 6.5
- B. 1.5
- C. 4
- D. 2.5
My answer
Ana walks from (0, 5) to (0, −3). Beto walks from (0, 5) to (6, 5). Who walks farther?
- A. Beto, by 4 units
- B. Ana, by 2 units
- C. Ana, by 14 units
- D. They walk the same
My answer
Talk about it
Which coordinate does each trip share? Do you add or subtract for each trip, and who goes farther?
Home mission
Cross two forks on the table to make the axes. Put one coin 3 finger-widths above the crossing and another 5 below it. Ask your student: how far apart are the coins? Add or subtract? Why?
If we get stuck, ask
- Which coordinate do these two points share?
- Do the other two values have the same sign or opposite signs?
- Does the trip cross an axis? Then what do we do?