These graphing worksheets and activities are a huge help in my math instruction. I kind of don’t have a unit for teaching data analysis and graphing. Technically, I do have one (here it is), but I don’t teach it lesson by lesson. Instead, I incorporate the graphing worksheets and lessons within my other math units. The reason I do this isn’t because of some profound revelation in teaching math. Instead, it’s simply because I don’t have time for an isolated math unit.

I’ve found that the best way for me to teach data analysis and graphing is to integrate it in my other math units. This often results in me adding an additional lesson to each of my math units or embedding a lesson or two into our math centers. In this post, I’ll share some of the ways I teach data analysis through graphing worksheets and activities.

Graphing Vocabulary

I do make sure students know general graphing terms. Most of these are taught in the primary grades, so that aren’t completely new to students. If you feel the need to teach more basic graphic skills as a quick review, you can do something short and easy like this Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream lesson.

Students survey classmates and teachers on their favorite flavor of ice cream. Then, students use their tally chart to create a picture graph of the top ice cream flavors.

Another introductory lesson is the My Favorite Pet survey. This is a quick and easy graphing activity to review essential vocabulary and concepts.

Once again, students interview peers and/or adults to determine their favorite pet. Then, students use that information to create a bar graph.

Line plots are most likely to be new to students, so this is one introductory lesson I don’t skip. (BTW-These names, as always, are totally made-up. While I do teach these lessons, all names and student work are made outside my actual classroom.) 

In this graphing worksheet, we list how many hours a week, books a week, or even hours a month students read. Then, students make a line plot to represent the information. It’s helpful for students to create their line plots on graph paper, because it helps them keep their Xs lined up correctly.

Graphing Worksheets – Place Value

One way to incorporate place value and teaching data analysis is through the Place Value Tower activity, which is an incredibly fun graphing worksheet.

Students build a “Place Value Tower” out of base-ten blocks. Then, they determine the total value of the base-ten blocks, as well as graph the number of one, tens, hundreds, and thousands blocks used to build the tower. To incorporate graphing, have students create a bar graph to either show the total number of ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands blocks in their Place Value Tower, or create a bar graph to show the total value of ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands in their Place Value Tower.

Graphing Worksheets – Addition and Subtraction

In this graphing worksheet, students think of as many addition and subtraction number sentences as possible that equal a given number. (If you did this later in the year, you could use multiplication.)  I like to give my students a one minute time limit for each number, and depending on the group and their need for a challenge, I may add rules such as: you can only use each digit once or you have to use 2-digit numbers.

After students have played five rounds, they complete a line plot that indicates how many number sentences they were able to generate during each round.

Math Facts

This is a great way to have students track their progress in learning multiplication or division facts. This is not a one time graphing assignment, but rather a graphing tool that students can use to monitor their own learning. I have students complete this graph independently and don’t display the graphs, so students do not compare their results with each other.

Once a week, every other week, once a month, or any set time period, give students a 100 question multiplication or division quiz. If you use Option 2, and feel like 100 questions is too much for your students, you can absolutely reduce the number of questions! It’s just important to keep the number consistent, so that graph accurately displays the data.

• Option 1-Count how many questions students answered correctly during the 5 minute test.
• Option 2-To reduce the anxiety of having a timed test, have students take as long as they need to solve the math facts. Rather than recording the number of problems correct in a minute, record the number of minutes and seconds needed to complete the math quiz.

Have students complete one section of the bar graph after each time they complete the assessment. Use the data to encourage students to focus on growth and not perfection.

Graphing Worksheets – Multiplication

This array lesson can be taught after students have experience reading and creating arrays. In this activity,  students build all of the arrays possible seven different numbers. They record their arrays on grid paper and write a multiplication equation for each array. Once students have found all of the arrays possible, they create a bar graph to show how many arrays were found for each number.

Elapsed Time

Have students complete the Where Does the Time Go survey independently. The survey asks students to estimate how many minutes they spend each day reading, watching television, playing video games, playing outside, helping around the house, and practicing an activity such as sports or a musical instrument.

Use the survey organizer to collect and display students’ data from the Student Survey. This organizer will allow students to consolidate the data and see the data as a whole. Then, have students work in groups to create a line plot that displays the data from one of the activities from the survey. Have students create their line plots on chart paper, so it can easily be viewed around the classroom.

After each group has completed their line plot, post the line plots in a central location and meet back together as a whole group to discuss the data represented in the line plots. The results are usually very surprising to students, and this is a great time to discuss goals and how it is important to use our time wisely to help us achieve our goals.

Fractions

Before beginning this lesson, students should multiple experiences using a ruler. Have students use a ruler to measure the length of ten pencils to the nearest ¼ inch and record their measurements. Then, have students create a line plot to show the length of each pencil measured.

You can complete a similar activity with paper airplanes and tie that into a STEM lesson. Give students time to create their paper airplanes and a few minutes to practice flying their airplanes. Break students into groups of four and have students take turns measuring the distance each plane flies. Each group needs masking tape to mark the starting and end point, a ruler to measure the flight, and a recording sheet. Then have students use the data in their recording sheet and the other groups’ recording sheets to create a line plot representing the data.

Graphing Worksheets – Area

Have students use cm cubes find the area of their hand. Another option for finding the area is for students to trace their hand on cm grid paper. Have students to work in groups of 4 to create a picture graph (using hands as their picture) that represents the area of each student in the group’s hand.

Groups will need to determine how many square centimeters each hand on their graph represents. Students can use the color coded hand pictures to help them create their picture graph. After students complete their graph, have them write questions that can be answered using information from their graph.

Geometry

Have students go on a geometry scavenger hunt! Students tally how many of each shapes they find and create a bar graph to show how many they found. Naturally, have students be ready to tell you what their examples are. Otherwise, the quantity of examples tends to be a bit skewed!

Each of the lessons in this post can be found here! These lessons has inspired me to think of even more ways to incorporate data analysis and graphing into our math units.

The post Graphing Worksheets & Activities appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

Keep reading for a mega collection of Christmas activities for the classroom, because I’m not sure if you’ve heard the news, but Christmas is coming. While fun and exciting, this can be an incredibly busy and stressful time of year. To help you out, I’ve compiled a mega collection of Christmas activities for the classroom into one post! That way you can find everything you need in one place and not have to spend hours searching for that one perfect idea or lesson. In order to keep this post from becoming epically long, I’ve included a brief snapshot of each idea.

Christmas Activities For The Classroom – Literacy

Holidays Around the World

One of my favorite Christmas activities for the classroom is holidays around the world, which incorporates reading and writing. There are ten sets of reading passages that are based on different cultures’ and nations’ holidays and traditions. For easy differentiation, each of the passages on three different reading levels. You’ll also find three sets of text dependent questions for each of the passages.

The passages and questions are also available in a digital version, so you can assign these lessons on Google Classroom. You can read more here or see this on TpT here.

To help you extend your holidays around the word lessons, there is an additional version of this resource. You’ll have access to both, so you can use what works for you. This extension includes a paired passage version of the holidays around the world passages.

There are multiple choice questions for each country, as well as nonfiction text structure and nonfiction text features questions. Students also answer a main idea and supporting details question for each passage.

My favorite portion is when students write a paragraph (or more) to integrate the text from both passages. Students love the fiction response, because they get to be creative. I know there are a lot of options, but don’t feel like you need to do it all! Pick what you want! There is a PDF version and a Google Slides version of this resource.

Holidays Around the World Interactive Notebook

To extend on these Christmas activities for the classroom, there are also templates students can use to create a Holidays Around the World Interactive Notebook. You can use this to review informational reading skills and strategies. For example, when students learn about Brazil, they will work on main idea and supporting detail. Students write the main idea in the center and a detail underneath each flap. You do not need the close reading passages for this pack, but it is an amazing companion resource! You can read more about this here or see the Interactive Notebook on TpT here.

There is also a digital version of this resource, which is probably my favorite version of the resource. You can see examples of the digital activities below.

The Week Before Christmas

I absolutely LOVE reading Christmas books to my students, because there is just something special about that time together, so I’ve created Christmas activities based around five popular Christmas picture books.

• Snowmen at Christmas
• Olive, the Other Reindeer
• Mooseltoe
• Night Tree
• How Santa Got His Job

For each book there is a reading activity, a writing activity, and I’ve tried to incorporate art as much as possible. For example, students make a snowman Venn-Diagram when reading Snowmen at Christmas. There is also a brief comprehension quiz for each book.

Christmas Activities For The Classroom – Math

Holiday Lights Math Project

One of my favorite Christmas activities for the classroom is this math project. In this Christmas Math Project, students enter a holiday decorating contest. Students select a house to decorate and must determine how many feet of lights they need/want for their decorations. (On the picture of the house, every centimeter equals one foot.) Then, students purchase all of their decorating materials from The Exterior Illumination Specialist.

All contestants (students) must submit a plan that accurately shows how their decoration budget is spent. Students plan should show student measurements so confirm the exact length of lights needed. The plan must also show the desired location of each additional decorative feature.

All contestants must submit a final version of the decorated house, which makes an adorable hallway display! You can skip this step, but it’s students’ favorite part of the activity.

Christmas Geometry Project

This Christmas activity begins with a letter from Santa Claus. He needs help drawing pictures of the buildings in Christmas Village in the North Pole. The catch is that all of the buildings are geometric figures (quadrilateral, parallelogram, square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, and irregular polygons). There are lots of different options for this project, so you can adapt it to your classroom. This part can take as long as you want. If you have the time, give students the opportunity to go all out and draw and color each building. If you’re in a hurry, students could color in the buildings a solid color or use smaller grid paper (included).

You can read more about this Christmas geometry project here, or you can see it on TpT here.

Christmas Fraction Project

In this project, students design Santa’s village in the North Pole by using equivalent fractions. There are three different versions of this activity, and I’ve included an optional extension version where students find the area and perimeter of each building.

You can read more about this Christmas fraction project here or see it on TpT here.

Third Grade Math Centers

Christmas Activities For The Classroom- STEM

I’ve also created Christmas STEM activities to go along with Christmas themed books. In one activity, students design a parachute for Olive. In another activity, students use gumdrops and toothpicks to see who can design the tallest Christmas tree, and in the last activity, students create a container that will prevent their snowmen (ice cube) from melting.

You can download those for free in this blog post.

Christmas Activities For The Classroom – Student Gifts

Crafts

Rather than purchasing traditional gifts, I purchased each student two craft kits from Oriental Trading. I presented them nicely in gift bags and gave them to students before our last day of school. I explained that the craft kits were their Christmas present from me. We completed the crafts together that last week before Christmas. I think the thing my students enjoyed most was the time spent together creating our crafts. It’s definitely a memorable Christmas activity.

School Supplies

I’ve also given school supplies for a Christmas gift. If your classroom is anything like mine, by this point in the year students’ school supplies have become almost nonexistent. We’ve run out of glue bottles and glue sticks. Our crayons have broken, we’re missing most of our markers, and our colored pencils are worn down to nubs. I give my students new school supplies for Christmas gifts to replace what they had been using. This is a win-win for me, because my students LOVE their new supplies, and the supplies are something I would have needed to purchase before the end of the year.

The post Christmas Activities For The Classroom appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.

I think the days between now and the end of the school year are, by far, the most difficult days of the school year. Teachers are tired; students are tired; the pressure of testing is mounting, and we’re all starting to see summer break on the horizon. Despite the challenges, I know that the show must go in order to maintain consistency and routines, which in turn, prevents a break down in academic performance and behavior. Below are a few literacy activities to keep your students learning and engaged as spring arrives.

Take it outside!

Let students grab their books or writing notebooks and take them outside for a little outdoor learning. Reading and writing outdoors can be relaxing for students, and it helps teach them that reading is something enjoyable that can be done anywhere! I know that personally, there is nothing better to me than taking a good book outside on a sunny day…especially if there is a beach involved 🙂

Reader’s Theater

There is almost nothing my students enjoy more than reader’s theater! I spent a little time on reader’s theater the week before Christmas Break, and my students absolutely loved it. That is probably the most engaged I’ve seen them all year long. You could chose spring themed scripts, or even scripts that correlate to your social studies and science standards. These kind of literacy activities are also the perfect time to reinforce your drama standards. If I have any extra time (ha, ha) I’ll let my students create a few props for their play.

Read Poetry

Poetry provides students a breath of fresh air. It’s new, different, and once students learn how to read poetry, they love it! There are lots of great silly poems out there, but my students also enjoy deeper and more thought provoking poems. I absolutely LOVE Caroline Kennedy’s Poems to Learn by Heart, which is a diverse collection of poems. I also enjoy reading Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog, which is one of my favorite books! It’s a chapter book that is written is poetry through journal entries.

Figurative Language Book

If you’re teaching poetry, you might as well squeeze in a little figurative language practice! I have my students create a figurative language book, where they describe different forms of figurative language, such as similes or metaphors. I have students explain the figurative language, use it in a sentence, and create an illustration of the form of figurative language.

Flip the Class

Let your students be the ones to make the test or create your next set of task cards! Have students work in cooperative groups to design a set of task cards that review a particular set of standards. I like to break my students into groups of four and give each group a different language arts standard. I then give students a set of blank index cards and let them get creative. I do require students to focus on content before then can decorate and add design elements to the task cards. This requires students to use higher order thinking skills, as they have to evaluate their questions to ensure the standard is being thoroughly practiced and review. I give each group of specific number of task cards that I want them to create within a given time period.

Make it Personal

Give students writing prompts that are relevant and personal to their own lives. If you want to see students get fired up, ask them if they want to have homework over Spring Break! While I cannot image ever actually assigning homework, I talk to my class as if I’m contemplating the idea. Even though I’m fairly certain my students know I’m not serious, they start telling me why it’s not a good idea. I use that enthusiasm and passion to have students write an opinion essay on whether or not students should have homework over Spring Break. If you’re working on personal narratives, you could have students write a narrative about their Spring Break. If you’re focusing on fictional narratives, students could make up a story about a perfect Spring Break.

Be a Book Designer

By this point in the school year, most students should be quite familiar with book jackets. I let my students create their own book jacket for a book of their choice. I give them blank white construction paper and have them create a front cover with the title, author, and large illustration. Then on the back cover, students write a summary. On the inside flaps, students create an about the author section and a book review section.

Spring Themed Vocabulary

Why not throw in a little extra vocabulary instruction these last weeks of the year! Even though I’m not a huge fan of writing definitions from a dictionary, I do want my students to be able to use a dictionary. We come up with several spring themed words and then find them in a dictionary. (It’s helpful for every student in the group to use the same type of dictionary.) Students write down what page they found the word on and the guide words on the page. Then, students record what part of speech the word is, as well as how many syllables are in the word. Once students understand the word, they use it in a sentence. This is a great activity for a little extra test prep!

All of the printables shown on this post are in my Spring Literacy Activities pack, but you definitely can use the ideas with or without them! These activities will surely keep my students busy, but I’m always looking for new ideas! What are your favorite spring literacy activities?

I am absolutely in love with my new spring door! I know it isn’t necessary, because we don’t have to decorate doors, and there isn’t anything academic on it. But, every time I walk in my door, I smile. That’s why I love it.  It’s the little things!  I have to admit that I did have some tons of help with my awesome student teacher!  It is beyond nice to have an extra set of hands in the classroom.

Can you tell I love spring?

The post Spring Literacy Activities appeared first on Ashleigh's Education Journey.