Introducing graphs to your young students might sound daunting, but it is surprising how quickly even 3 and 4 year olds can catch on when graphs are used for meaningful purposes in your classroom!
I like to start out the year by completing a graph whole group once or twice a month. It is easy to use graphs along with the concepts you are learning about. Graph students’ favorite dinosaur, what Eric Carl book they liked best, or what pets they have at home. Talk about what the graph shows asking students what dinosaur do MOST kids like? What dinosaur do the LEAST kids like? How many more kids like velociraptor than pterodactyl? When you work through these kinds of problems together, students are practicing counting, recognizing numbers, comparing values, all while starting to gain an understanding of what graphs mean!
As students become more comfortable with using graphs, they can start constructing them independently. I like to play find and graph in my classroom. I hide pictures around the classroom, and students create a bar graph of what pictures they found.
Another hands on activity to introduce graphing is Graph Builder. Give students a handful of different color cubes, paper squares, or different counters. Students sort these onto a graphing sheet that is pre-labeled or that students label themselves. You can then have students tell you or another student what they know about their graph.
Survey and graph is another student favorite! Students circulate throughout the room asking their friends what their favorite sport, food, color, etc is. They can record each student’s response to create a graph.
What are your favorite graphing activities?
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