Using Graphs Every Day!

One thing I like to do is to use graphs every day (just like the pictures says! ha!)  I don't like to do different graphs every day - holy cow, that would be a lot of work! haha! But I've always done a graph every week - to go with the theme that we were doing for that week. It wasn't until this year that I thought.. "Hey - why don't we extend it over the week!?" That way we weren't just doing  a graph and moving on. I wanted the students to really be engaged and be able to interpret the graph.  

So I started making journals. I use these for a math rotation (after the initial data collection) because my math block is so short, so this is a great math rotation for my kids to do that is nice and short, but meaningful. You could also do this for morning work or a math block warm-up!

Start by discussing the title of the graph and then talk about what the question would be for the week. Have them write the question in the journal and then they can cast their vote!

There are two different headers you can choose from -

the big one that you can cut and organize on the poster

or the pocket chart size header. 

I have a pocket chart graph too, and I love it!! You can get it on amazon. It looks like this...

But THEN...instead of just being done with the graph, extend it!  Throughout the week, the students complete the activities in their graph journal.  (I copy all the journals entries for the graphs that I'll be doing that week and staple it into one book for the month).

Each day, we do an activity... 

This new way version was that they needed to figure out how many students voted in all. The letters next to the numbers are them "Tagging" their numbers to make sure they used all the choices. This is a problem I still have from when I taught 3rd grade and we had to tag all of our answers. lol. 

And then, here is the next week's, ready to go!

You can check this out with my Working with Graphs Every Day.

Included in the pack:

• 5 questions for the month (even if there aren't 5 weeks.. just pick and choose the graphs you want to do for that month!)
• 27 math vocabulary words (these are the same in each pack, so you don't need to reprint them each month, unless you want to color coordinate with the month!)
• Big header and pocket chart header
• graph inserts for the options
• voting cards for the students
• student graphs - entries for each question