Graph Stories
Rachael Swanson
4th Grade
Math, Reading, Social Studies
Objective: Read and interpret data displays, such as tallies, charts, tables, and graphs
and use observations to pose and answer questions.
Anticipatory Set: Show children social studies and science graphs from textbooks,
almanacs, and Weekly Readers. Popcorn answers: What kinds of graphs are these?
What do they show? favorite one? least favorite? Why?
Create a story about one graph as the children watch.
Direct Instruction: After creating a story while they watch and listen, students join
in creating a story with you as a whole group. Do this for a couple of days.
Guided Practice: Groups or partners are given three graphs to pick from. Together,
they create a story about it. Post them gallery style.
Closure: Relate this to state test questions by showing graphs in test specs. First, tell
a short story. Then, look at the question. Use Study Island, other states' released
questions, practice books.
Independent Practice: Give opportunities for students to teach the class using
Promethean Board. Pull up random graphs. Generate stories, questions,
statements.
Required Materials and Equipment: Lots of graphs, charts, tallies on hardcopy or on
a screen. Smartboard, test specs, Study Island.
Assessment and Follow-up: Independent stories, group teaching sessions. Quizlabel the parts of graphs and what they tell. Create graphs using given data.
Technology Integration: There are 3 flipcharts to use with Promethean Boards.
These flipcharts review graph concepts and allow the students to interpret the
information and discuss it. They also will create different types of charts and graphs
using the data provided. In the climate flipchart, the class as a whole will begin a
climate graph for their town.
file:///Users/teachers/Desktop/student_survefile:///Users/teachers/Desktop/Ana
lyzing_Graphs_Mean_Median_and_Mode.flipcharty_20080519183120.flipchart
file:///Users/teachers/Desktop/Climate_Graphs.flipchart