Floor Graphs

I’ve got a fun math activity for you!  It’s important to me that my children not only know how to read graphs, but know how to create them as well.  Mahayla is a pro at gathering information and creating her own graphs on paper.  Caleb is just beginning, though, so I wanted him to make a “concrete”  graph to be sure he understands all the parts and why they are where they are.

Here’s how the lesson went……We decided on a topic – animals.  He decided to gather data from 40 people by asking what their favorite animal is.  He then came up with a list of several animals he would let them choose from.  Then, he wrote the animal’s names on a piece of paper and tallied the “votes” as they were given to him.

Next, he wrote each animal’s name on a notecard and placed the cards along the floor.  He knew he needed numbers going up the side  to show how many people liked each animal.  He used 1″ tiles to show the results from the 40 people he interviewed.  And finally, he wrote a title card calling his graph, “Favorite Animals”.  🙂

Next time, he’ll be ready to create a graph on paper.  He knows the “parts” because he had to make them and manipulate them.  It’s a strong visual that won’t soon be forgotten.

Mahayla just wanted to be part of the action!  I asked her to create a line graph showing a week’s worth of data from her peak meter numbers.  The doctor will be so impressed with this picture when we include it in her file during the next visit!  He asked her to keep a chart.  Little did he know that we would take him this seriously.  LOL