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Special Right Triangles Practice Book

I created this special right triangles practice book for my trigonometry students to glue in their interactive notebooks as part of our beginning of the year geometry review.

This was our last topic to review before delving into actual trigonometry.  I don’t know exactly what it is about special right triangles, but I LOVE them.  Okay.  I guess I say that about a whole lot of math topics.  I guess this means I’m in the right profession. 🙂

special right triangles practice book

Me: Class, today we are going to be learning about two special types of right triangles.  These two triangles are going to become your BFFs.
Student: You said there are two of these triangles?
Me: Yes.
Student: Oh goody.  That means I will have at least two friends now.

My students make me laugh so much.  They are the best.

My entire goal for interactive notebooks is to create a resource for my students that they actually use.  I decided that we would put each of the special right triangles on an index card.  Then, we made a cute little pocket to hold the cards in our notebooks.  The kids got SO excited over these little pockets.

Here’s what we wrote on our reference cards:

special right triangles practice book

The idea behind these cards is that students could keep them out while working on their assignments.  When I teach trig again, I will tweak these cards a bit.  I would have students label the 45-45-90 card as a; a; a radical two right underneath the 45-45-90 heading.  And, I’d do the same for the 30-60-90 card.  I do like that students had to check which side length was opposite the angle they were interested in.  This really made them stop and think about what opposite means on a triangle.

One of my students thought that making the cards was a silly little exercise.  But, a day or two later, she told the class that these were the most helpful things in the world.  It was awesome to watch my students use these cards and encourage their classmates to use them as well.  Hearing them tell somebody to get out their cards and use them = PRICELESS!

I would love to find a way to include more index cards in my notebooks in the future.  Hmmm….

A go-to foldable for me to make is a poof booklet.  I have a file on my computer where I can quickly change out the practice problems, and I instantly have a new foldable to use.  My students never cease to be amazed by these poof booklets!

special right triangles practice book

I think the smiling right triangle adds the perfect finishing touch to the page!  🙂

Inside the booklet:

I made students circle whether the triangle represented a 30-60-90 right triangle or a 45-45-90 right triangle.  In the future, I would probably have students fill in the blanks for both the angles and the side length ratios so they sat exactly on top of each other.  Hindsight is 20/20.

Because I LOVE my students, I also included two word problems.

special right triangles practice book

For more info on how to assemble a poof booklet, check out this tutorial I wrote for a poof booklet for another topic.

Slightly Modified Version of Special Right Triangles Practice Book

In 2016-2017, I made some slight modifications to this practice book.

Unknown

Wednesday 16th of August 2017

Even though I love math I would never put sooooo much hard work and effort for making a file! XD still amaaazingg work done by you. It makes math simpler and easier! Awesome work!

Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove)

Tuesday 5th of September 2017

Thanks for reading my blog!

Lisa

Friday 21st of October 2016

Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for all your wonderful foldables! I have lost count of the number of your foldables I have stolen since we started implementing ISN's! I would really love to steal your "calculating distance between two points" materials, but when I click on the link for all your Unit 1 materials, I get a message that the web page is not available (I tried both Chrome and Safari). Could you post a different link? Thanks so much for EVERYTHING! Yours is my go-to blog when I begin a new lesson!

lisa.taylor@hwschools.org

Saturday 22nd of October 2016

OK, so it must have been an issue with my connection at work... I can now access all of your beautiful files! But I couldn't wait, so I made a foldable of my own that is a complete rip-off of yours! You should be able to access it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0P9t8NhIb22NWw2OHZZVHJIVmM/view?usp=sharing Thanks again for everything!

cobeyfamily

Monday 21st of December 2015

Thanks you Sarah for sharing this with us. I am going to do INB for trig for the first time and I love your stuff! I was looking at your review unit (unit 1) and I don't think I need to do all of it, but I do like the mastery tracking sheets but I can't find one in unit 1. Do you have that available somewhere? Thanks! Diane C.

Unknown

Thursday 29th of October 2015

I like your blog. Many good ideas I can use in my classroom. Thanks

Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove)

Monday 9th of November 2015

You're welcome!

Teri Ferguson

Tuesday 10th of March 2015

I apologize if this posted twice.

Sarah, I now find myself checking your blog before I begin a new unit. You have a gift for content presentation, and I thank you for sharing it with the world

Aaron Bieniek, I love the 1 idea! I will be stealing that.

Sarah Carter (@mathequalslove)

Wednesday 25th of March 2015

Thanks Teri! I'm always stealing ideas from others, so I'm glad someone else can use some of my ideas!

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