Organize Your Data

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Display the lunch count data on the board.
• Ask a volunteer to set up a picture graph, or a visual representation of data with pictures, and a bar graph, or a visual representation of data with rectangles that represent numbers, on the board.
• Explain that numbers are usually on the vertical side (Y axis), and what is being measuring is usually on the horizontal side (X axis). For example, in the lunch data graph, food would be on the X axis, and number of people that brought that food would be on the Y axis.
• Invite someone to illustrate the lunch data on a bar graph. Have her use a different colored marker for each item, such as green for salad and yellow for pizza.
• Ask your students questions about the graph. Potential guiding questions include: What do you think is a favorite food among our class? Least favorite? How many more people want salad compared to pizza? How many fewer people want sandwiches compared to pizza?
• Then, invite another volunteer to represent the data on a picture graph. Explain that for this picture graph, each picture will represent 2 food items.
• Remind your students how to count by twos, and explain that 2 pictures of pizzas represent 4 pizzas.
• Explain to your students that a half picture represents one item.

Guided Practice

• Explain to your students that they are going to collect data for their favorite types of candy.
• Go around the class and ask each student to name his favorite type of candy.
• Record the responses on the board.
• Direct your students to partner up and draw a bar graph for this data. Have them label the X and Y axes.
• Next, go around the class and have each student say his favorite animal.
• Record this data on the board.
• Instruct your students to partner up and draw a picture graph for this data, reminding them that one whole picture represents 2 animals.
• Ask your students questions about the graph. For example: What is the least favorite candy among our class? How many fewer friends like birds compared to dogs?
• Instruct your students to complete the Eggplant Pictograph worksheet, explaining that one picture represents three items.

Independent working time

• Give your students two of the following worksheets to complete: Tomato Pictograph worksheet, Gone Fishing worksheet, Reading a Bar Graph worksheet, Eat Healthy Bar Graph worksheet.