Graphing Activities

Activity One

  1. Construct horizontal and vertical number lines that they have 0 as a common number.
  2. Place a dot on the page to represent the position (3,4).
  3. Would this be the same as (4,3)?
  4. On what must we agree?
  5. Find the rule you need to satisfy this question.
  6. Locate other points in a similar way
  7. Prepare a vertical and horizontal grid on graph paper
  8. Mark the points (3,2)
  9. From this pont if you moved 2 to the right and 1 up, what would your new position be?
  10. Challenge a partner with similar questions.

Activity Two
Materials

  • Dice (2)
  • Graph paper
  1. On graph paper mark a horizontal number line and a vertical number line that intersect.
  2. Roll two dice
  3. Starting at the origin (0,0) make the moves which the dice indicate.
  4. If you roll say a 2 and a 5 you can move either 2 right and 5 up or 5 right and 2 up.
  5. Mark your new position.
  6. The object is to continue rolling and moving until you go off the upper right hand corner of the graph.
  7. If two people play, take turns to see who wins.

Activity Three

Materials

  • Home-made pendulum
  • Metre stick
  • Graph Paper
  1. Make a pendulum 30cm long.
  2. How long does it take to make 20 beats?
  3. Try the same experiment with a pendulum 45 cm long, with one 60 cm long and with one 75 cm in length
  4. Record your results on a graph.
  5. What relationships do you see?
  6. Join the points you have marked. This is called a line graph.

Activity Four

Materials

  • a board
  • a marble
  • a box
  • graph paper
  • meter stick
  1. Place the end of a board on a box.
  2. Measure how high it is from the floor.
  3. Roll a marble from the top to the bottom of the board.
  4. How long did it take to reach the bottom?
  5. Raise the board, measure the height and time the roll of the marble again.
  6. Do this 4 or 5 times.
  7. Make a line graph comparing the height to the time.
  8. Form more conclusions.

Activity Five

Materials

  • Skipping Rope
  • Graph Paper
  1. How many times can you skip without a miss?
  2. Compare your score to the score of 3 or 4 of your friends.
  3. Make a graph to show all five results.

Activity Six

Materials

 Rubber Ball

 Meter Stick

 Graph Paper

  1. Drop a rubber ball from heights of 200cm, 100cm, 150cm, 50cm.
  2. Find how high it bounces on the first bounce.
  3. Record the results on a graph.
  4. Join the points on the graph to make a line graph.
  5. What other conclusions can you make?

Activity Seven

  1. How old is each pupil in your class?
  2. Make a graph showing the results.
  3. What is the most common age?
  4. What is the least common age?

Activity Eight

  1. How many sit-ups can you do in 30 seconds?
  2. Ask four of your friends to do this test.
  3. Compare the results on a graph.

Activity Nine

Materials:

  • graph paper
  • reference books
  1. Which country in the world has the largest population?
  2. Compare this to Canada.
  3. Using reference books, find the 10 largest countries in the world according to population.
  4. Make a graph showing the 10 largest countries(population) in the world.
  5. Are these also the 10 largest in size?

Activity Ten

  1. Find how many people in the class have:
  2. black hair
  3. blonde hair
  4. red hair
  5. brown hair
  6. Make a graph to show what you found.
  7. What is the most common and least common color of hair?
  8. Would this be true in another classroom?

Activity Eleven

  1. Ask your classmates which vegetables they do not like.
  2. Make a graph showing the results.
  3. Which is the most disliked vegetable ?

Activity Twelve

  1. Ask each person in your class to tell you the month in which his/her birthday comes.
  2. Show what you found on a graph.
  3. What does this suggest?
  4. Try the same thing at home using different people's anniversaries.
  5. What is the most popular month for a wedding?

Activity Thirteen

Today many people have pets and they are almost like one of the family.

  1. Find out what pets your classmates have at home.
  2. Show how many of each kind there are on a graph.
  3. Can you tell which is the most popular pet? The least popular?

Activity Fourteen

  1. How many people are there altogether in your family?
  2. Ask your classmates this same question.
  3. Make a graph showing what you found.
  4. What size of family is the most common?
  5. Try to find the average size.
  6. Do you wish your family was different in any way?

Activity Fifteen

  1. What is your favorite subject?
  2. Ask 10 of your classmates the same question.
  3. Make a graph to show the results.
  4. What is the most popular subject?
  5. What other conclusions could you draw from your graph?

Activity Sixteen

  1. Ask your classmates to name their favorite color.
  2. Make a graph to show the results
  3. Why do some color show happiness while others show sadness?
  4. What do some colors illustrate?
  5. Draw and color a picture either showing warmth or cold.

Activity Seventeen

  1. What do you think is the most popular color of car?
  2. Find out how many of each color are in the parking lot.(You may watch the cars passing the school for 5-10 minutes.)
  3. Make a graph to show your results.
  4. Did you guess the right color?
  5. What kinds of cars are parked in the parking lot?
  6. Make a graph to show how many of each kind there are.
  7. Does your graph prove which is the most popular car?

Activity Eighteen

  1. How many had perfect spelling last week?
  2. How many had one mistake, two mistakes, three mistakes, more than three mistakes?
  3. Make a graph to show these results.
  4. If the whole class got all correct on their weekly lesson, what would you graph look like?