More than just a graph-Upping the rigor in graphing and a trick to blow your mind!

Cool math tips for getting the most out of graphing

It only took me 14 years to figure out this graphing trick. I might be a little slow. But I felt like a genius in math today. We were graphing apples… Who doesn’t graph apples? But today was different. Today changed graphing forever.
Simple changes… big results.
Teaching the difference is the bane of any graphing lesson. Graphing is so easy, concrete, and fun. Then comes the “What’s the difference?” question and half the kids miss it and the other half of them pretend to need to go to the bathroom. So I changed my method. I kept asking them to compare things that were exactly the same.

Light bulb moment- differnece is hard to see until you can see similarites

Oh I played it up… “What do you mean the Yellow Golden Delicious are the same as the Gala apples????” Then I showed them two groups of 5 paper clips each and questioned again. “What’s the difference?” They cried out, “They are the same. There is no difference!” I did it with cubes. I did it with sheets of paper. I did it with fingers. Then, Then Then, I did it with Skittles and two students. “Jane has 6 and Mike has 6. So what’s the difference?” The kids were going crazy, almost yelling “THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE !!! ”. Had their teacher gone crazy? (Yes, years ago.) When I let the 2 students eat all 12 skittles it was “game on”. They all wanted Skittles. So I brought up to new kids. One kid was given 3 Skittles and the other one was given 5. I asked again, “What’s the difference?” and just about every hand went up. They were so HAPPY to finally see a difference between the groups that they actually saw the (math term) difference. I asked how did you figure that out? I got these answers:
“ I counted up.”
“I subtracted.”
“I looked at the ones that were the same and the extras were how they were different.”

It worked. Graphing tip #1 teach the difference by comparing things that are exactly the same first!

Graphing tip #2 Don’t create the whole graph and then ask questions. Stop and question often as you build

I don’t know why it took me 14 years to figure this out, but I asked oh 50-60 questions in this graphing session and they were engaged the whole time because the graph kept changing with each group that added their data.

Simple tips to getting more out of graphing

These two are pretty self explanatory but worth talking about. By numbering, your kids can compare faster and talk about what they see using number words instead of just the words more and less.
Buddy reading the bulletin boards, otherwise known as playing teacher. I love to turn my kids loose in the classroom and walk around listening to them teach each other. It gives them a chance to use their academic language in a non-threatening way, and gets the talking about math and other subjects in complete sentences. My room is filled with our anchor charts so they can revisit an entire month of learning without having a “review lesson”. I walk around with a clipboard and just bask in the glory of what they know. They come alive and become animated in an awe inspiring way!
So you must have gathered by now that we are in the throngs of Apple Week. You too? Go figure! What is it September od something? Well, you know how I feel about informational reading and the lack there of in first grade. Oh there are a TON of books out there. Too bad the kids can’t read them. So, you know I wrote some. Two, as a matter of fact!

Social Studies and Science are both covered and my kids loved them!!!
We graphed, made applesauce, and wrote about Johnny.

Washing: Say “Scrub a Dub” Twice and move on to the “Drying Station” (5 moms handing out paper towels)

Coring

Cooking

We also drew him for the covers of our published writing. Just adorable!

Today we took our science and social studies test and the kids rocked it. I even saw them referring to the vocabulary cards! Praise the Lord, no one asked me how to spell “apple”. Well, maybe one kid did and the girl next him said, “Duh, use the vocabulary wall!” I decided not to correct her brutal honesty because the word apple appears in about oh 200 charts in my room right now.

Today I got 6 grades in my grade book!

Social Studies

Science

Oral Speaking

and 3 Writing grades.

Yes 3 writing grades!

The Appleseed writing was one grade. The Science test asks them to tell two facts about an apple tree, so since our bench mark for month 1 is two sentences, that was a grade. The Appleseed Social Studies test has a writing component too! I am in grade book heaven!

If you want to be in grade book heaven, then here you go My Love. It’s a mini unit to sink your teeth into!