Last week I presented a workshop for a terrific group of preschool teachers and home day care providers. We talked about developmentally-appropriate ways to incorporate graphing into our classrooms. The easiest type of graph for young children is a bar graph.
When children start graphing, it is important to use real objects. We always begin by graphing the students themselves. We might ask a question such as, "What is your favorite thing to do on a snow day?" Then, we offer 3 choices (make a snowman, go sledding, drink hot cocoa). The students line up next to their choice. We always count the number of students in each line, and decide which choice is most popular, etc.
Stage 1 - Real Objects
There are lots of other ways to use real objects. In the fall, we invite students to bring their favorite apple to class. We graphed the apples by their color on a big graphing floor mat.
During our Bear unit, the students brought their favorite teddy bears to class. We lined them all up on the floor to graph their colors: white, brown and black.
In the spring, jelly bean graphs are our favorites! Each student gets a little bag of beans. They sort them by color, then create a bar graph on their own mat.
We also love to graph Valentine's hearts. This class glued their hearts down to make a take-home graph.
Stage 2 - Picture/Name Graphs
After students have lots of experience graphing real objects (themselves, apples, toys, candy, fruit loops, rainbow goldfish, etc.), it is time to move to the next step-- Using pictures or names instead of tangible objects. In this graph, students taste tested two apples - red and green. After the taste test, they placed a post-it note with their name on it in the column to mark their favorite apple.
We also make graphs with the number of syllables in the students' names. They have become really good at clapping their names and counting the syllables!
Stage 3 - Symbolic Graphs
Finally, when students have had lots and lots of practice with real graphs and picture/name graphs, I might introduce a more traditional, symbolic, bar graph. The students in this picture were at the end of their Pre-K year (age 5 1/2), and they were definitely up for the challenge. This is the same lesson as the picture above with the real jelly beans. I was able to adapt it for these students who were ready for it.
With each type of graph, the most important thing is to get the students to analyze the data. I ask, "What information can we find out from this graph?" or "What do you know by looking at this graph?" Just making the graph is not enough! They need to use it to understand the data and draw conclusions. When 3, 4, and 5 years-olds get lots of hands-on practice in preschool, their transition to more formal math and graphing is much smoother!
Have fun playing, learning and graphing with your children today!
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