1. Investigation 1—Locating Houses and Ships on a Grid
      2. Investigation 2—Rectangles, Turns, and Coordi-nates
      3. Software download - ask your teacher for the pass-word.
      Tips for Helping at Home
      •
      Questions to ask:
      What is it that you don’t understand (have
      the student be specific)?
      What about putting things in order?
      Could you try it with simpler numbers?
      Can you guess and check?
      Does this make sense?
      What can you do to explain your answer to
      show others what you are thinking?
      Does your answer seem reasonable?
      •
      Offer to solve your child’s coordinate mystery
      after he or she creates it. If you are unsure of
      how to read grid coordinates, your child can help
      you.
      •
      Play Sunken Ships with your child when he or
      she brings it home. Your child can teach you the
      rules and maybe even some strategies!
      •
      Keep your eyes open for rectangles in the world
      around you—they’re easy to spot. Work with your
      child to find particularly large or small (smaller
      than an inch on a side) rectangles, rectangles
      that are also squares (all sides are equal), and
      rectangles that are much taller than most fourth
      graders.
      Mathematical Emphasis
      Investigation 1—Locating Houses and Ships on a
      Grid
      •
      Using positive and negative coordinates to name
      and locate points on a grid
      •
      Calculating distances on a grid based on paths
      along grid lines
      •
      Exploring numerical patterns that represent geo-
      metric situations
      •
      Connecting visual and numerical descriptions of
      distances on a grid
      Investigation 2—Rectangles, Turns, and Coordi-
      nates
      •
      Applying knowledge of coordinates to locate points
      on a computer screen
      •
      Describing geometric figures such as rectangles
      and squares
      •
      Understanding how
      Geo-Logo
      commands reflect
      the properties of geometric figures
      •
      Creating and applying patterns and mental arith-
      metic strategies to solve turtle geometry problems
      •
      Using symmetry to place rectangles on a grid and
      design complex patterns of rectangles
      Websites
      http://cms.everett.k12.wa.us/math
      http://aimsedu.org/aimskids/ipuzzles/hurkle/hurkle.html
      http://math.donnayoung.org/m01/coordnt/4squ.pdf
      Software download - ask your teacher for the pass-
      word.
      http://investigations.scottforesman.com/sunken.html
      2-D Geometry
      Designing Rectangle Patterns
      As a final project in Sunken Ships, students cre-
      ate complex patterns, drawing them first on planning
      paper, then entering them on the computer using
      Geo-Logo.
      Their work focuses on:
      •
      Analyzing
      Geo-Logo
      procedures and drawings
      •
      Predicting drawings from commands and com-
      mands from drawings
      •
      Designing rectangle patterns using
      Geo-Logo
      •
      •
      •
      •
      •
      While observing this work, teachers and parents can
      ask students to explain what they are doing:
      •
      Do they have a plan?
      •
      Are they exploring to see what happens?
      •
      Are they able to predict and explain what hap-
      pens when the turtle runs a command?
      Vocabulary
      Ordered pair:
      A pair of numbers used to lo-
      cate a point on a coordinate grid. The first
      number tells how far to move horizontally
      , and
      the second number tells how far to move verti-
      cally
      .
      Line segment:
      a straight line from one point
      to another
      Vertex:
      the place where two or more line seg-
      ments come together
      X-axis:
      the horizontal axis on a coordinate
      grid
      Y-axis:
      the vertical axis on a coordinate grid
      Reflection (flip):
      creating a mirror image of a
      shape by flipping it over
      Translation (slide):
      sliding a geometric shape
      a certain distance in the same direction
      Glossary
      http://www.amathsdictionaryforkids.com/
      Sunken Ships
      Object:
      two teams try to locate each other’s sunken
      ships
      Setting up:
      Each team secretly draws a sunken ship
      on the grid labeled “Our Ship” on the Sunken Ships
      Grids sheet. Ships must cover five grid intersections
      lying on a vertical or horizontal straight line.
      1. The first team starts its search for the other
      team’s ship by naming a grid point, such as (-3,
      5)
      2. The second team checks to see if that point is
      on its ship. If it is, it says “Ship.” If not, it gives
      the number of units to the nearest undiscovered
      point on the ship.
      3. The first team records its point on the grid la-
      beled “Their Ship.” They write
      S
      for ship, if it is a
      point on the ship, or the number indicating how
      far away from the ship the point is.
      4. The second team guesses where to start its
      search for the first team’s ship by naming a
      point.
      5. Teams take turns guessing points until they
      have both found all five points of
      the other’s ship.

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