Play "Hop 'til You Stop" to Practice Graphs!

Even though your fourth grader is probably great at asking 10 people if they've seen the latest movie, he may need practice using math to show his data. It helps to give him fun survey questions to use in collecting information to convince him to practice his math skills! Help your child use his creativity and endless energy to combine exercise and math in a game of "Hop 'til You Stop!"

What You Need:

• lined paper
• pencil
• white construction paper (or printer paper)
• ruler
• wrist watch w/a second hand (or kitchen timer)
• crayons or colored pencils

What You Do:
Step 1:
Tell your child his is going create a game to practice math skills of collecting information and showing it on tables and graphs. Have your child use pencil and lined paper to create a list of at least 5 names of people they can survey. (This can include other siblings, parents, friends, or anyone able to hop for one minute!) Be sure he leave one blank line between each name on the paper. Have your child use a ruler to draw a column line - to create about a one inch margin- on the right side of the paper. Have him write the word "Total" at the top of the column.

Step 2:
Tell your child use tally marks and a wrist watch (or kitchen timer) to record on the
lined paper the answer to this question: "How many times can you hop one foot in one minute?" Each time a person hops, he should record a tally mark. Remind him to record a number "5" by crossing through four tally marks. He should remember to keep the tally marks in the same row as the person's name who is hopping. After all tally marks are recorded for 5 people, have him record them using regular numbers on the "Total" column of the paper.

Step 3:
Have your child use a piece of white construction paper, pencil, and a ruler to create a graph. Have him make a column line at every 2 inches beginning from the left side of the paper. Then have him use a ruler to divide the graph into 5 equal horizontal lines from top to bottom of the paper. Have your child label each line on the far left with these numbers starting at the bottom line of the graph and working upwards: "0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50." Have him write each person's name under a column on the graph. He should label the graph below the bottom line with "number of hops on one foot in a minute." Then have him place a dark circle on the line of the first person's column to show how many hops they had. For example, if "Mom" had 10 hops, he would place a dark circle on the first horizontal line above her name in her column. Continue this process for each name on the graph. Then have your child use a ruler to draw a line connecting each dark circle-starting with the first name-similar to connect the dots.

This will show a pattern of whether the number of hops got smaller or larger from one person to the next person. Ask your child the following questions about the graph:

1. "Who had the most hops in a minute?"
2. "Who had the least hops in a minute?"
3. "Did the second person show an increase or decrease in number of hops from the first     person?"
4. "Why do you think that happened?" (Perhaps if an increase occurred, the first person was older & couldn't jump as fast as the second person, etc.)

You can extend this activity by adding more people to survey and adding to the graph. This is a great way to help your child practice math skills!