Struggling to determine the best way to approach teaching graphs to elementary students? There are so many different types of graphs that students need to be able to read and create, and I’ve finally gotten it down to best help my students be successful with reading and creating bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots.
Teaching Graphs to Elementary Students
Start by introducing the key vocabulary to your students. They must know the data, scale, key, legend, bar graph, line plot, and pictograph. Some students may be familiar with some terms, and others may not, so I always start with creating an anchor chart discussing the key vocabulary terms. We will also discuss how data is collected with the following steps: create a survey question, decide on a few choices, survey a group of people, and record your results with tally marks.
Teaching Graphs with Bar Graphs
I always start teaching graphs with bar graphs because they make it easier for my students to understand, see and create. When going about the type of graph, I always do one day of just reading the graphs. We start by discussing the specific parts of a graph. In this situation, we would discuss the title and the labels on each of the axes. We will also talk about the scale on the y-axis. I always like to explain to my students that it won’t always be counting by one. Sometimes, it may count by 2 or 5 or something different, so we always want to check before reading the graph.
I really wanted to make the graphing interactive, so for bar graphs, I gave students a quick one-question survey about their favorite pizza topping and only gave five choices. We worked through creating the tally chart to show the number of students that preferred each topping and drew out our bar graph.
Teaching Graphs with Pictographs
Next, we go over picture graphs (pictographs). We go through the same process as bar graphs when we are learning how to read the graph, but I make sure to point out the key or legend to students so they remember the value of each picture. Students often get confused when they see only half of a picture, so we want to ensure they understand that they will divide the number in the key by 2 to get the number represented by the half image.
I allow this to be more hands-on when creating the graph and using gummy bears. Students are given one of the small individual packages and make a tally chart of how many in each color they received. They will then create a key; some students will say one picture of a gummy bear equals one gummy bear, and others will get more creative and say one picture of a gummy bear equals two gummy bears.
After students create their pictographs, I have them get together with a partner and combine their data. Lastly, we combine our data as a class and create a group of four to show that the key won’t always be simple numbers.
Teaching Graphs with Line Plots
The last type of graph I taught in third grade was line plots. Before our graphing unit started, we had learned about the different parts of a ruler and partitioning a number line in the fraction unit. I used this as an opportunity to tie it in and review it. Again, I used the same process for teaching reading the graphs as before.
To practice measuring to the nearest inch, we blew puff balls along our desks with straws (masking tape would mark the starting line so everyone started at the same point) and then measured the distance they traveled. This was a fun activity when teaching graphs because students found it to be a competition and wanted to see how far they could get their puff ball in comparison to their friends.
After we are done teaching graphs of all types, we like to practice with various games and activities. Check them out below.
