Fourth Grade Explores Tables and Graphs

Fourth grade has begun a new unit in math that involves exploring tables and graphs. In our first lesson to introduce the unit, our class did a warm up to create a human 'picture' graph. The months of the year were written on separate pieces of paper and then pasted on the wall in a row. Students grouped themselves into the months in which their birthdays fall. Students then formed a straight line in front of the correct month.

From their positions in this human picture graph we had created, we had a discussion to interpret the information in the graph. We explored questions like: In which months of the year were the same number of students born? How many students were born in those months? Which month of the year has the greatest number of birthdays? Which month has the least? What is the difference in the number of students born in the month with the greatest number of birthday versus the month with the lowest number of birthdays? In which months are there no birthdays?

Following this discussion, we created a bar graph as a class to represent our human 'picture' graph. We discussed every part of the graph as we created it together. Students came up with the title of the graph. One student knew that the vertical and horizontal lines that make up the graph are called the axes, so we labeled our axes as y and x. The students came up with the labels for each axis that would represent the data in a way that made sense. We then filled in the bar graph to represent our class' birthdays!