Graphing can be a word some teachers fear! However, I think graphing is one of the easiest standards to start your year off with! This year, I’m going to be teaching a split grade class of second and third graders. Therefore, half of the class will be in second grade and the other half third grade. To make my beginning of the year low stress, I’m starting my year with a graphing unit for elementary students.
Graphing can be a word some teachers fear! However, I think graphing is one of the easiest standards to start your year off with! This year, I’m going to be teaching a split grade class of second and third graders. Therefore, half of the class will be in second grade and the other half third grade. To make my beginning of the year low stress, I’m starting my year with a graphing unit for elementary students.
Why a Graphing Unit for Elementary Students?
I love starting the year off with a graphing unit because it simulates play! We have been told for years that students learn from playing. Therefore, allowing students to manipulate objects for their graphing unit, your students will feel like they are playing more than graphing which can make learning more dynamic.
Starting My Graphing Unit
To start my graphing unit for elementary students, I introduce it to students as a way to organize information because that’s what a graph does. Then we discuss that we put things in a graph to easily learn things about whatever it is we are graphing. For example, if we organize how many boys or girls are in a classroom, we can learn how many more girls or boys are in the class. For older students, I use different vocabulary, and tell them graphing is a problem solving tool used to help people see relationships between things. Of course then we talk about the definitions of key words like “relationships.”
Teaching Kindergarten and First Grade Graphing
If your students are younger and haven’t really been exposed to graphing yet, you can start with sorting and classifying because graphing is a natural offshoot of this skill. So, if you are teaching kindergarten and first grade, you can start your graphing unit for elementary students with a sorting and classifying activity. This helps students learn how to sort things by their attributes in order to later graph them by those same attributes.
You can find an easy to follow and low prep graphing unit for kindergarten in my TPT store. You can also find one for first through third grade. These graphing units have everything you need to get your students started.
Beyond Making a Graph
While making graphs is really important, I like to take my graphing unit a step further. After making “real graphs” or graphs that we make with real objects like making a bar graph by separating boys and girls in the classroom, I like to start with a picture graph. These can be found in my TPT store in the graphing units for kindergarten through third grade. With picture graphs, students cut out pictures of themselves and graph them on a class graph together. They can compare this graph the same way they did the real graphs.
Breaking Down the Graphing Unit for Elementary
I have found the best way to do any graphing unit for elementary students is to start with a real graph and then move it to a picture graph. Of course when you are graphing anything, you are looking at two or more attributes. Therefore, I like to compare two attributes in a real graph, then move to a picture graph with two attributes. After that, I move to a real graph with three attributes, then move to a picture graph with three attributes. Then, I just keep repeating this pattern.
Using Manipulatives for Graphing
When you start graphing different items, I like to use my math junk to help kids sort by themselves. Using blank graphs, the kids put their objects on that graph. So for example, using a bin of red soda lids and white soda lids, they can graph them to see how many of each they have. You can give a handful of soda lids to students and see if they can graph the number they have on the blank graphing frames. Then they complete the worksheet that goes with it. Younger students may only work on graphing the objects themselves while older students do the worksheet and computations.
I will start my third graders this year with graphing math junk or mini erasers from Target, but then I will move into working on creating the picture graphs and analyzing information. Whatever you decide to do with your students is totally up to you. One thing that is great about the graphing unit for elementary students is it is so easy to differentiate.
The graphing unit is such a fun and low stress unit to start your students with. Not only will you be covering a great standard, you will also be sliding them into the school year with an acidity that simulates play.
You can also check out my new video on YouTube about teaching Graphing to young students. Just click on the photo below.
And if you’re interested in the free Target eraser graphing worksheets, just fill in your info below and I’ll send it to your inbox.
