1. Getting to the Point

2. It all started with a fly, and a man named René Descartes…

3. How it Came to Be: One day, in the 1600s, René Descartes lay in his bed and saw a fly on his ceiling. As he loved to think about math, he thought about how he could tell someone exactly where that fly was. This is how the Cartesian Plane came to be!

4. The Cartesian Plane A Cartesian Plane is used to situate an object, place or point. It locates a point specifically. A Cartesian Plane has 2 axes : horizontal axis and vertical axis. Each point on a Cartesian Plane is represented by what we call an ordered pair. Ex: (2,3). 2 = number on horizontal axis 3 = number on vertical axis

5. The ordered pair where the horizontal and vertical axes meet is (0,0), also known as the origin. always start with the number on the horizontal axis To read an ordered pair, we always start with the number on the horizontal axis and then the number on the vertical axis. You mark a point by how far along it is and how far up it is.

6. When you connect the points of ordered pairs, you can sometimes see images!