How to Teach Graphing Sine and Cosine

⁠Watch this video if you need help teaching graphing the sine and cosine functions. 

August 2024

In this video, I show you a method for teaching students how to graph sine and cosine functions. I'm calling this Method 2 because it is slightly different from what I did for many years, but I have had a lot of success with it.

The process used in Method 2 can be used for any type of function—not just trig functions. It requires that students be familiar with the parent graphs and the 5 key points, which are organized in a T-table. 

After analyzing the function's transformations, the values in the t-table are transformed as well. Finally, students set up their axes, labeled the scale, plotted the points from the t-table, and graphed the transformed function!

Other posts you may be interested in:

How to Teach Graphing Tangent and Cotangent

How to Teach Graphing Secant and Cosecant

How to Teach Graphing Transformations of Functions

If you want a free copy of the PowerPoint presentation that I use to teach this lesson, scroll to the bottom of this page. Here's the link to the trig graph paper Here's the link to a resource that I use with my students

Questions or comments? Find me over in my my Facebook group for Algebra 2, Precalculus, and Calculus teachers

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