Plotting and connecting

Students in Mr. Leve’s fifth grade math class were working on Coordinate Graphing this past week.  What is Coordinate Graphing?  Coordinate Graphing is a visual method for showing relationships between numbers on a coordinate grid.  The coordinate grid consists of two perpendicular lines (or axes) that are labeled like number lines, on which points are plotted.  The horizontal axis is the X-axis, and the vertical axis is the Y-axis.  The point where the 2 axes intersect is called the origin.  The numbers on the coordinate grid are used to locate points that are identified by an ordered pair of numbers; a number on the x-axis called the x-coordinate, and a number on the y-axis called the y-coordinate.  Ordered pairs are written in parentheses and separated by a comma; (x-coordinate, y-coordinate).  The concept of Coordinate Graphing is similar to the popular Milton Bradley board game Battleship.  Mr. Leve’s students used Coordinate Graphing to plot and connect points that made a dog, a scarecrow, and back-to-school pencil.