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Transforming the Letters

Age 7 to 11
Challenge Level Yellow star
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In Miss Chan's class, a group were working with a box of large wooden capital letters. They were exploring what happened when they rotated them one half turn, or flipped them sideways and from top to bottom.
They started with "F". They found four Fs in the box.
"Billy, you just push yours into the middle of the table," said Katie who was rather bossy, "then we can see how the others change."
Here is Billy's F:

capital letter F

"I'll turn my F upside-down," continued Katie, "that's half a turn."
"A $180^o$ turn about its centre," remarked Ali.
This is what Katie's looked like:

capital F after a 180 degree turn about its centre

George said, "I'll flip mine over sideways."
Here is George's F:

Capital F after a flip sideways

"That leaves me to flip my F from top to bottom," said Ali.
So then Ali's looked like this:

capital F after a top to bottom flip

"Look, they are all different. I wonder if all the letters are like that. Which ones shall we try?"
Katie had spelt out Miss Chan's name with four of the letters:

C-H-A-N in capital letters

"Let's try with those," suggested George. So they did.

What did they find out?

"What happens if you do a half turn followed by a sideways flip?" wondered Ali. "Do you think any of the letters in the box get back to the same as they were to begin with?"

capital letters of the alphabet

They did find some which did just that. Which letters are they?

Do these letters also go back to the same if you do a half turn followed by a flip from top to bottom?


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The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice.

NRICH is part of the family of activities in the Millennium Mathematics Project.

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