Graphing In Kindergarten - YOU BET!

Casey teaches in a full day kindergarten class.  She had been at her daughter's school and saw a great idea for a bulletin board and decided to give it a try with her kindergarten class.  (I like to call that "educational shoplifting" :)

She asked her students the question of "How Many People Are in Your Family?"  Instead of having them complete the graph on chart paper, she gave each student a small paper plate.  On the plate they drew the people in their family.  By using the paper plate it allowed her the opportunity to keep the drawings all the same size.  This really made it easy for the students to compare the different sizes of their families as they were able to count the plates to help determine how many people are in each type of family.  (e.g, More students have 5 people in their family.  9 friends have 4 people in their family)  With 29 students it makes for a full bulletin board!