Graphing and Data

Students in second grade have been collecting data!  One of the standards in math is: Draw a picture graph and a bar graph to represent a data set with up to four categories.

We started the unit by playing Guess My Rule, in which students have to figure out who fits or does not fit the rule.  The rule could be wearing a hoodie or having shoelaces.  Students then have to find someone else in the class who either fits that rule or does not fit that rule.

Using this game, we collected data or information.  The next step students took was to take this data and turn it into a bar graph, complete with a title, labels, and the bars.   As students created the bar graphs, they then interpreted what the graph was saying.  For example, students learned that more people were wearing shoe laces than not wearing shoe laces.  Students also could have noticed that less people were wearing jeans than not wearing jeans.

This past week, students were taking data and making categories and groups for information about a class.   They organized the data and created a bar graph.  They then did an assessment to categorize favorite foods.

Overall, we learned that bar graphs help tell us information about a group of people.