· 2 min read · Ages 5–9 · Kindergarten–Grade 3
Bar graphs from class surveys: reading and making data in K–3
The whiteboard survey is the whole of K–2 data handling, and you can only run it once a day. A printed survey lets you do the graphing part ten times.
Twelve kids, one question (what is your favorite fruit), and a tally chart on the whiteboard. That survey is the whole of K–2 data handling, and the trouble with it is that you can only run it once a day. A printed survey with made-up classmates lets you do the reading and graphing part ten times.
What the sheet looks like
Each page from the graphing worksheet generator is a small class survey, one of 12 themes such as favorite fruit, pets, weather or sports, with 3 to 5 categories. Read the bar graph and read the pictograph print the finished graph with how-many, most, fewest, how-many-more and in-all questions. Make the bar graph gives a tally chart or table to graph from; make the pictograph gives counts to draw pictures for. Tally chart prints a board of pictures to count, and roll and graph has a column per dice total, one die (1–6) or two dice (2–12).
Scale can be 1 or 2 per square or picture, and mixed prints one read page plus one make page. The answer key covers every survey.
Why it works
- How-many-more questions are the hard ones. They need a subtraction read off two bars, and this is where most first graders' graph reading breaks.
- Scale 2, where each picture means two children, is a half-step toward real graphs, and an odd count forces a half picture, which is a real conversation.
- Making a bar graph from a tally chart means coloring the right number of squares in the right column. It is bookkeeping, and kids who skip it misread graphs later.
Who it suits
Kindergarten to third grade. Start a kindergartner on the tally chart and roll and graph pages, which are counting with a picture at the end. The read pages at scale 1 are first grade; scale 2 and make the pictograph with half pictures are second and third. If tally marks are still new, the tally marks sheet is the step before this one.
Roll and graph with two dice is the one to print twice. The second graph has the same hump in the middle, and a third grader can be asked why.