Paper Airplane Graphing

 

Target Age Range:  Upper Elementary – Middle School

Skills Covered:  measurement, record keeping, averages, graphing, technology, keyboarding, writing, art, invention

This lesson is so much fun – especially for boys!

1. Have your child design several different paper airplanes.

2. Give each plane a name.

3. Go outside with the planes and a measuring tape.

4. From the same spot, throw and measure each plane three times.  Note the three measurements for each plane.

5. Determine the average flight measurement of each plane.  (Add all three measurements for each plane together and divide by 3 to find the average.)

6. Use one of my favorite FREE websites, Create A Graph, to transfer the average flight of each plane to various graphs.

{Bar Graph}

{Line Graph}

{Circle Graph or Pie Graph}

The final graphs can be saved to your computer and printed.  They look so fantastic, don’t they?  Have fun playing with Create A Graph!

More Graphing:

I’ve had bunches of graphing fun with my children over the years.  Go grab some more ideas here!

Need a living math “how-to” guide?  You might like Loving Living Math!

Be sure to skip your way through all the other bloggers taking part in the Hopscotch, too!