How To Draw A Nonagon Step By Step With Pictures

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This morning we did a little ad-libbing with our day. We haven't had a unit lesson in several weeks due to the holidays, but we're still trying to fill in whatever days we can with some learning. My boy has taken a pretty good interest in 2 and 3 dimensional shapes lately and this morning I realized that he can tell me the names of all the polygons up to 12 sides. That was impressive. So, I thought, why don't we draw them, angles and all, and learn what we learn along the way. And so we did.

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Our intent was to draw all of them up to 12 sides/12 angles, but we only got through the first four today. We'll try to pick it up tomorrow.

First, to refresh your memory, what is a polygon? It's really really really simple. A polygon is a plane shape (two dimensional) with straight sides. That's it. And what are the first polygons up to 12 sides?Well, there are ten of them. There are no one sided or two sided polygons, so it starts with a triangle. Triangle (3), Quadrilateral (4), Pentagon (5), Hexagon (6), Heptagon (7), Octagon (8), Nonagon (9), Decagon (10), Hendecagon (11), Dodecagon (12).

We did our drawing on watercolor sheets because my boy wants to paint them when we're finished with the drawing. We'll see if we get to that. I started us out with a simple circle, traced from a small bowl, on each page. We didn't really use the circle for the first two because you start with a line for those, but it gives the project cohesiveness. 🙂 From there, I had the boy write the name of the polygon we were going to work on at the top of the page while I did a quick Google search on how to draw said polygon. Each one has a different formula, it turns out. But, that's where this blog post comes in handy – it's all in one spot for you now! You're welcome. The first four are tried and true, the rest you are on your own to check for accuracy. And I say that with importance because the Pentagon gave us trouble. The first formula I found for making the lines the accurate length was WRONG… only, it took me half of an eraser to finally look up another formula and find some new numbers. Anyhow, these were fun and we learned a bunch along the way. And it's art – so it can be framed if you are that into math – which we are, so we might. 🙂

Below are the links for how to draw each shape! If you draw any, leave me a comment (and picture if you can!) and we can share our joy in polygon land.

Triangle – Equilateral: http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-an-Equilateral-Triangle

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Quadrilateral – (square, rhombus, rectangle, trapezoid, parallelogram, etc) – we just did a square, so didn't need a tutorial 🙂 But, we watched this Khan Academy video and learned what parallel lines are, how to notate them on a shape, how to name a line (AB with a line over it), how to notate parallel in an equation (II). https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry/quadrilaterals-and-polygons/v/quadrilateral-overview

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Pentagon – http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Pentagon ONLY, THE CORRECT NUMBER TO MULTIPLY THE RADIUS BY IS 1.176 . PLEASE NOTE. Also, I found it much easier to use mm vs. inches when doing the math. Other wise, it's not too tough.

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Hexagon – http://www.wikihow.com/Draw-a-Hexagon – we did the first one on this page.

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Heptagon – http://informationaboutsometopics.weebly.com/drawing-regular-polygons—heptagons.html

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Octagon – http://www.ehow.com/how_5989242_draw-octagon-8-sided-polygon.html

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Nonagon – http://www.ask.com/question/how-to-draw-a-nonagon

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Decagon – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regular_Decagon_Inscribed_in_a_Circle.gif

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Hendecagon – Can not be made with a ruler and compass…? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendecagon We might go the easy route and draw a circle, find the center point, draw a radius line and measure out the interior angles making new radius lines as we go.

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Dodecagon –http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regular_Dodecagon_Inscribed_in_a_Circle.gif