The first mouthful of graphs and statistics

Graphing in Junior Grades can seem daunting but it is actually a really erudite fun in learning the math concept. Kids get it pretty easily.
I introduced graphing with rectangle shapes of different colors from Rangometry – Red, Orange, Green and Blue. The kitty children were given the chance to pick the shape of their favorite color. Children were into the pool of energy in picking the shapes. Then came the graphing part……I sketched two axes on the board and the children were vivaciously asking questions “what are these lines, why drawing two lines???……”. I labelled the axes with the name of colours along the X axis and children along the Y axis. “How many of you love red as your favouritecolour?”. Those children, like the dickens, stuck their red shapes one above the other on the white board. Then the green colour, orange colour and blue finally…
the children were amazed to look at the display on the board and tried terming the diagram.

Finally, they predicted the term “Blocks” and coined the diagram as “Block Graph”. It was an overwhelming moment when they answered to the queries of extended learning as – “How many children loved red colour?” They counted the number of blocks and chorused the answers.

I tried to make further interesting sessions of block graphs of favourite foods, vehicles, story characters. It’s truly a classroom bonding experience the kids love. I made them talk to their partners about what they noticed about the graph. It became an AWESOME opportunity to get them to use math talk – model some observations for them (“I notice the most people like ice cream. What do you notice?” “I noticed that the least amount of people liked donuts.”). Once they got good at it, the children started to ask each other questions like, “How many people liked cake the most?”). It was using THEM and their friends as data about what THEY like… So trust me, they were assiduously engaged and wanted to talk about it.