I’m in the midst of teaching a class called Improving Elementary Math. I have a great group of teachers with whom I am exploring ways to expand their repertoire of tools for teaching a variety of concepts in math. For part of the day today we focused on graphs and data analysis. I am a HUGE fan of daily graphing in the elementary classroom, so I spent some time looking for ideas to share. I came across some really terrific resources, so I’m sharing them here.
Mrs. Meacham’s Resources
- Math Tubs: Graphing
http://www.jmeacham.com/math/graphing.htm- Graph of the Day/Week
http://www.jmeacham.com/math/graph.of.the.week.htmGraph of the Day (with printables)
http://www.kinderpond.com/graphingideas.htmlDaily Sign-In Questions
http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showthread.php?t=14153Mathwire Resources
- Glyphs
http://www.mathwire.com/glyphs/glyphs.html- Morning Math Routines
http://www.mathwire.com/routines/morning.htmlGraphing in Your Classroom
http://www.teachingheart.net/graphing1.htmlKidscount1234 Resources
- Graphing
http://www.kidscount1234.com/graphing.html- Glyphs
http://www.kidscount1234.com/glyphs.html- Venn Diagrams
http://www.kidscount1234.com/venndiagrams.htmlClassroom Graphing Ideas
http://www.abc123kindergarten.com/graphmka2001.html
Mrs McGowan’s Graphs
http://www.mrsmcgowan.com/math/graphs.htm
CanTeach Math: List of Daily Math Graph Questions
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/numbers13.html
In addition to these resources, I recommend these two books about graphing.
Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel - This book uses a variety of picture, circle (pie), bar, and line graphs to demonstrate how an orphaned Siberian tiger cub grows as he is raised by hand. The story of T.J.’s growth told through text, photos and graphs, with graphs appearing on the left page with explanations.
The Great Graph Contest by Loreen Leedy - What happens when a snail, toad and lizard get together? Why the snail sets up a contest between his friends to see who can make the best graph! Points will be awarded by snail for correct math, creativity, and neatness. Who do you think will win? There is much going on here that kids will love. A great deal of information is shared in word balloons. At the end of the book, the data collection and construction of each graph are carefully explained.
I visited several of the above websites and was really impressed. I work in Cape Town South Africa with teachers of under privileged children, and regularly go into their classrooms to teach. I’m the Language and Literacy Co-ordinator of a non-governmental education organisation. I run language and literacy workshops for elementary teachers.
This term we’re dealing with graphs and translating the information on the graph into an information text made up of words.
I’m very excited to have found this site, and the sites it pointed me to. Thank you!
I found this website when I was looking for bulletin board ideas. This website got me excited about doing graphs in classroom. Graphing is part of our assessments and this will be good to do weekly.