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 two food items.
• Remind your students how to count by twos, and explain that two pictures with two pizzas represent four 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 their 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 their 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 two 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.