The patterns made when a parallel lines are cut by a transversal are really cool to recognize. I feel like once you see the pattern then you can understand why the angles are either congruent or supplementary. Unfortunately, it’s not always so easy for students to see the pattern. So, teaching students about transversals offers a great opportunity to reinforce with students the good mathematical practice of always looking for patterns in mathematics. Many of the practice activities listed below for this topic bring a chance to look at things visually.
Also, this topic gives the opportunity to teach students a lot of math vocabulary. I used to teach English to students who were learning English as a second language as middle schoolers. That experience taught me a lot about vocabulary development. The biggest takeaway from my ESL experience is that students need a lot of repetitions before words are adopted into their lexicon. They need to use target words over, and over, and over again in a variety of meaningful ways. As I searched for activities to share in this post, I definitely curated these activities with both pattern recognition and vocabulary development in mind.
For a step-by-step walk through of how I teach this topic, be sure to head over to “How to Teach Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal”
Now, let’s dive in! Here’s the list of the 12 13 activities:
- Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal Mazes
- MangaHigh Practice Game
- Transversals & Angles in a Triangle Digital Escape Room
- Shmoop Video
- Parallel Lines and Transversals Task Cards
- Dance, Dance, Transversal
- Parallel Lines and Transversals Coloring Activity
- Find the Missing Angle in Triangles Mazes
- Parallel Lines and Transversals Knockout Review Game
- Angle Graphic Organizers (free download below)
- Tracing Paper Discovery Activity
- Illustrative Mathematics-Street Interaction
- Kahoot
In addition to a summary and explanation, I’ll also share my own experiences and some ideas that go with each of these activities:
Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal Mazes
My students love practicing with math mazes. In fact, I’ve gotten to the point where I now start every class period with a maze as bell work. Mazes keep students working as they try to reach the end of the maze while sharpening their math skills.
These 3 mazes include practice with identifying angle relationships, finding the measure of missing angle and solving for x in an equation. They make great bell ringer activities, math stations, homework assignments, or cyclical review.
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MangaHigh Practice Game
This game from MangaHigh would be good as an anticipatory set or for fast finishers. It has a variety of questions related to parallel lines cut by a transversal. Students have to race against the clock and are awarded points as they play. I like this activity because everyone gets practice and instant feedback. Also, as the teacher you can play the game and model your thinking. Plus, if you’re feeling a bit competitive, students love to challenge the teacher.
Transversals and Angles in a Triangle Digital Escape Room
If you’re looking for an engaging way for students to practice in partners or independently, this digital escape room activity is a great option. Students love practicing with digital escape rooms because it incorporates a mystery they’re trying to solve, and allows them to work at their own pace.
In this activity, students start by learning about the overall mystery. As they successfully complete their tasks, they’ll uncover what item was stolen, by whom, and where. To get started, students will answer a series of 4 questions about angles in a triangle. Their answers will give them a code, and they can enter their code into the decoder (link in the activity) to find out right away if they’re on the right track.
Once they’ve gotten the first part of the mystery, they’ll continue on to parts 2 and 3. working with pairs of parallel lines cut by transversals. At the end of each stage they’ll again enter their code to see if their answers are correct, or if they need to go back and review their answers.
This activity is completed in Google Slides in a completely digital setting, so prep is a breeze. And the added element of solving a mystery helps students have just a little extra motivation to keep going. Read more about digital escape rooms for math class here.
Shmoop Video
I like to use Shmoop videos as anticipatory sets. I usually give students a couple of questions to answer as they watch the videos. In this video on parallel lines and transversals I have students write down three things that they understood about transversals from the video. I had to let them watch this video two times. The first time I didn’t have them write anything. Then, the second time I asked them to write while they watched and then wrap up afterwards.
Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal and Angles of Triangles Task Cards
Task cards have so many uses. Sometimes I just love that I have them in hand for a sponge activity. When I designed these particular task cards I made sure to include a variety of question types. Students get a chance to look at transversals and triangles presented in a few different way.
There’s an answer sheet that’s included that gives students some parameters on answering the questions. The answers can also be printed on the back of the cards.
I had my kids work on these task cards one day when I was absent and at home with my sick toddler. It was awesome to know that students could work on this activity and get immediate feedback without my being there. These worked perfectly for sub plans.
Dance, Dance, Transversal
Dance, Dance, Transversal is an idea that I found on Pinterest. Click this link to read more about this fun activity. Basically, the activity is inspired by Dance, Dance Revolution and requires some painter’s tape and a prepared pattern of angles, or moves, that students will need to do (can be in a PowerPoint). In the post, painter’s tape is arranges on the ground and students place their feet to show correct angle relationships.
I tried this activity in my class with a few variations. It was a very visual and kinesthetic way for students to practice their vocabulary words. In my class we actually put the painters tape on the desk. This allowed us to give everyone a place to play. They used glue sticks and would move them according to the pattern that I gave them. I’d call out, “Alternate angles,” for example, and they’d quickly place their glue sticks accordingly. Then, I’d call out the next one. One of the students was trying to remember the pattern when he was taking completing his exit ticket. I think this would be especially helpful if you did it a couple of minutes a day over the course of a week.
Parallel Lines and Transversals Coloring Activity
I have to say that when I first saw coloring activities for math class, I thought the coloring part was a waste of time. But I also knew that it would be a fun and easy way to give students a “pay off” for working hard. So, I decided to create my own.
This Parallel Lines Cut by a Transversal Color by Number Activity was the first coloring activity that I created. You’ll notice that the coloring part is very small. That appeased my sense of not wanting to waste time. Students don’t spend very much time coloring, but it’s still an engaging little bonus. Some of the kids don’t like to do the coloring part, but it really is a great brain break. Above all, this activity helps students practice words related to angle relationships. Also, it works well as a review activity.
Find the Missing Angle in a Triangle Mazes
Sometimes kids just need more good old fashioned practice. That’s what this set of three mazes can do. The first two mazes help students to practice finding a missing angle in a triangle. The third maze is for finding a missing angle on the exterior of a triangle. I use these mazes as bellwork during the week we’re learning this topic, and then again later in the year as cyclical review.
Students love doing mazes. I can’t really explain it (although I tried here), but I get such good feedback from students on mazes. Ultimately, students are doing a whole bunch of practice, but it’s presented in a way that’s engaging.
Parallel Lines and Transversals Knockout Review Game
This year I’m teaching an advanced 8th grade math class. Many things about teaching this class surprise me. One of them is how much my students love games. They go absolutely crazy for them! This week I played this knockout review game with them as a class. They loved it!
The questions in this game are fairly simple, so I used it as a practice activity right after finishing our notes on the vocabulary related to parallel lines cut by a transversal. This whole class game acted as a quick way to practice these words in an engaging fashion.
Many of the questions are similar to each other, so students could learn from their mistakes and make corrections through the course of the game. They kept track of their own points. Ultimately, the points aren’t really worth anything, but my students sure do love to collect them.
At the end of the game on the last question I let them wager from zero to all of their points. They were all jumping up and yelling, “I’m going all in!” Seriously, try this game with your class and you’ll see a very engaged bunch of kids. To read more about how to play knockout games, check out this post.
Graphic Organizers & Student Whiteboards
If you don’t already have SmartPal whiteboard sleeve you might want to look into them. These clear sleeves can hold a piece of paper and basically turn anything into a whiteboard. I use them a couple of times per week and this particular topic lends itself to them. Due to the fact that learning about angles is visual, you can put a picture of parallel lines cut by a transversal on the inside of the SmartPal and then have students work with it that way.
To help students get lots of repetitions with identifying angles, I have a couple of graphic organizers that I put inside that makes for quick practice. If you want to download one of the graphic organizers we use for whiteboard practice, for FREE, click here.
One of my favorite part of using these boards is that I can see everyone’s work very easily. I can give everyone feedback in less than a minute and do a quick check of where my students are at.
Tracing Paper Discovery Activity
One of the biggest issues I see with this topic is students lack of seeing any patterns. In this post from Math Giraffe, she explains how you can use tracing paper to give students an opportunity to draw the angles. If they draw over the angles themselves, then they can more easily see that two sets of four angles have the same measure. This activity is very simple to complete. Students can then refer back to this activity as they continue learning about this topic.
Illustrative Mathematics-Street Interaction
This Street Interaction activity from Illustrative Mathematics works well as an extension activity after students have learned about this topic. I use it for fast finishers.
In this activity, students are given a set of directions related to a map and they have to find a solution. The activity guide gives them a different way to see angles and they have to explain their thinking through this process.
It can be difficult when students do this type of activity for the first few times. Some of them are very use to just giving an answer. However, I find that the more they are challenged to explain their rationale, the better they get at it. This particular activity is not too challenging and pushes kids just far enough.
Kahoot
This Transversals Kahoot game is a great quick check to see where students are after a lesson. One of the new things that I recently discovered about Kahoot is that it generates reports that you can save to your Google Drive. At the very end of the game when it asks if you can to save reports make sure to click there. It shows you how each student did, as well as how the class did on each question.
Students get excited for this game-all you need is a technology device. Students simply enter the game code, type their name, and they’re off. One of the drawbacks is that it’s pretty competitive and some kids give up when they fall out of the high scores. It’s a great opportunity to remind students about growth mindset and how learning from our mistakes is an essential part of learning.
Try one thing…
So, I’ve presented a lot of different ideas in this post. I would encourage you to just try one new thing. You can add one new activity to your teaching tool belt. You’ll see that students learn the vocabulary words related to this topic if they have a variety of activities to practice vertical angles and corresponding angles. These are words that they don’t just know. Giving them engaging ways to practice will give them the repetitions that they need to move these words to their long term memory.
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
