Introduction to Graphing
Age group
- Early Years (Age 3 to 6)
Curriculum Goal
Kindergarten: Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviour
Describe, sort, classify, build, and compare two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional figures, and describe the location and movement of objects through investigation (#17).
Related Links
Context
- Students should be standing on one side of the carpet.
- Students should have a good understanding of sorting by characteristics and should have done “Sorting Apples” lesson, which includes making a graph.
Materials
“Sorting Apples” graph from the Sorting Apples lesson
Lesson
- Tell students you will be sorting them by characteristics and that their job is to find out what characteristics you are sorting by.
- Choose a characteristic (e.g. hair colour) and begin to sort children in columns. If you are sorting by hair colour, you might have three different columns – brown, blond and black.
- Ask children what characteristic you have sorted by.
- Then ask children to sit in a circle and take off their shoes.
- Put the shoes in a big pile.
- Ask, Is it easy to count the shoes when they are in a big pile? Listen to their feedback.
- Put the shoes in a straight line.
- Ask Is it easier to count the shoes when they are in a straight line? Listen for feedback.
- Have students sort their own shoes using different characteristics (e.g. colour, size).
- Children will take turns putting their own shoes in the appropriate column.
Look Fors
- Do children understand the purpose of sorting?
- Can students pick characteristics to sort by?
- Do they make any comments about the data (e.g. most people in the class have black hair)