Last Updated on October 16, 2023 by Editorial Team
For some, maths is fascinating and gripping, for others, the subject can be mind-boggling and tedious. Either way, a student cannot run from certain concepts and subjects during their school life. One of the concepts introduced during middle school is coordinate planes, which often leaves the kids perplexed and in a tizzy. However, concepts like these are crucial as they can also be great examples of positive and negative numbers.
Furthermore, while most concepts can be handled theoretically, topics, like coordinate planes, when taught using gamification, can help manifolds. While it’s no secret that children enjoy learning to plot, however, it can be tough for them to internalize basics about coordinate planes through traditional teaching.
Hence, apart from integer games, coordinate plane games help students in understanding the location of both negative and positive integers, as well as aid them in creating a mental image of this two-dimensional plane with continuous reinforcement. So, below are some games that can be apt for students of varying ages to learn and strengthen their basics about coordinate planes.
Interactive games to ace coordinate plotting
Coordinate plane games, while educating students of various ages about coordinate plotting, can be extremely engaging to play. Hence, below is a list of people that students can plan on their own or with their parents to enhance their plotting aptitude.
1. Coordinate Bee
Coordinate Bee is an easy-to-understand game for young children learning about coordinate point plotting. The game displays bees holding certain coordinate points. The player needs to move these bees into the right boxes, as per the coordinate points they are holding.
Once the player has placed all the bees, the game offers an overall score as well as the answers that were wrong. The game can be very helpful for children under 5th grade as it is based on a single positive quadrant.
2. Bombs on the Grid
Bombs on the Grid is a game for thrill-seekers. It intrigues individuals with a challenging mindset and requires the player to multi-task while engaging in mental activity. The game is based on the idea of diffusing or squirting one of the bombs, by driving a car to the coordinate points displayed in the games.
It’s important to be quick, as the bomb can burst at any given point. Hence, the player has to be prompt with eye-hand coordination as well as make sense of where to reach on the grid. The game can be a little hard for beginners but can easily grip the students with its interactive and high-energy demands.
3. Stock the Shelves
Stock the shelves is an extremely simple and fun game for students to learn plotting on both negative and positive quadrants. The game asks the player to help a store clerk place the drinks at the correct spots. Stock the Shelves is a timed game and the player gets 2 minutes to place 20 bottles at the right spot. The game offers a nice practice for students to become quicker in coordinate plotting.
4. Coordinate Plane Game
The Coordinate Plane Game is one of the easiest and most convenient games to learn coordinate plotting. The game instructs the player to move the cursor to the point combination displayed. Even though there are 4 quadrants, the game uses a large scale( eg, 50,100,200, etc) along which the cursor moves, which makes it easy and suitable for beginners. The game keeps track of the scores and uses a drill and practice approach to train students.
5. General Coordinates Game
The General Coordinates Game lies on the challenging side for beginners. It comes in two modes, namely, view mode and guess mode. The view mode basically involves the player setting the plotting points on the x and y vertical columns given below the graph and then observing the movement of the house to these points on the graph.
The guess mode can be a bit challenging as the player has to guess the coordinate points on which the house shifts. While the view also contains the four quadrants, however, beginners can simply put positive values and learn plotting.
6. Coordinates Alien Attack
Coordinates Alien Attack is one of the most interesting and challenging games to learn coordinate plotting. The game is built on the premise of saving the Earth from an alien attack. The rocket is placed at a point on the graph, and the player has to put the exact points of the graph on the keyboard to launch another rocket to destroy the alien’s rocket.
If the player puts the wrong coordinate points, then he/she loses a life. The game comes in two variants, first- a single positive quadrant, and second 2 positive and 2 negative quadrants. Hence, the game will be suitable for a wider population of learners.
7. Cali and the Coordinate Grid
Cali and the Coordinate Grid is a fun game with just one positive quadrant, perfect for beginners. Cali the cat is placed within the graph and moves with the cursors given on the right side of the coordinate grid. The game is not time-bound, however, it displays a timer and a time record about the least amount of time taken in a round.
The game displays certain quadrant points, which the player needs to plot using Cali the cat. Once Cali reaches the right coordinate points, the player needs to click on find. The main challenge of the game is to feed Cali 10 times in the shortest amount of time. Since the game has only one positive quadrant, it can be used with students below grade 5.
8. Homer’s Donuts Coordinates
Homer’s Donuts Coordinates is an advanced, yet simple coordinate plane game easily available online. The game has a donut cursor, which automatically moves to a set point on the graph. Once the donut moves to a point on any point on the quadrant graph, the 4 options with the possible answers appear on the screen. The player has to guess the points plotted on the graph among the given choices.
The game is time-bound and has four stages, with a score tracker at the top of the game. While the game is slightly advanced for children under the age of 10, however, for students in higher grades the game can be apt to learn the values of each quadrant. One good thing about the game is that the graph contains values between 0 and 2, which makes it exceptionally suitable for middle-school students.
9. Coordinate Plane
The coordinate plane game is a simple game for elementary school children to learn graph plotting. Unlike advanced coordinate plane online games, the Coordinate Plane has points plotted on a single quadrant. It is suitable for children under the 5th grade, who are learning to locate points by combining information of x and y verticals.
The game shows the plotted points with a star and asks the players to select from the 4 options with the right answer. The player has to guess the correct color of the star plotted at the point whose coordinates are asked. There are a total of 12 questions with an answer tracker given at the top of the game. For beginners who wish to understand the concept of coordinate plotting, the game can be an interactive drill.
How do games help in learning coordinate plotting?
Learning to plot points on a coordinate plane is obviously easy in a game. Even though some games provide a smooth simulation for learners to practice, however, plotting points on a graph is a different thing altogether. As technology has rapidly enhanced the tradition of teaching, it can be used to improve one’s understanding of coordinate plotting in the below-mentioned ways:
- Through games, early learners will find it very easy to make a mental image of the two axes
- Games make it easier for beginners or young learners to memorize that the x-axis is horizontal whereas the y-axis is vertical
- As point plotting is a combination of two numbers, students can get easily reinforced to always first locate the number on the x-axis.
- In cases of advanced plotting games, students can further strengthen their symbolic interpretation of different negative and positive plot points on the graph
Conclusion
Graphs and coordinate plotting form an important topic in mathematics across all elementary schooling years. While teachers have always emphasized practice to learn graphs as matters get trickier when algebra is introduced, recent advancements in technology have made it easy for learners to have fun while understanding an important mathematical game. For teachers, coordinate plane games can be both an informal way to teach as well as assess students about their coordinate plotting.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,