Fun with Line Plots

I love teaching math! Kind of ironic considering I wasn’t a “math person” until college!

We finished up learning about line plots a couple weeks ago, and boy oh boy, did my kiddos have fun! I don’t know if it was because they were so interactive or the sticky notes (because what love of learning doesn’t start with sticky notes?), but man did they love working on line plots, almost as much as they loved multiplication!

This was seriously one of my favorite units! We spent 2 weeks on line plots, and it was so much fun! According to the standard, students are supposed to record the lengths of various objects and then record the lengths in a line plot, and then analyze the data. Sounds great, except my kids had never even heard of a line plot! So, I decided to start basic. Surveying, collecting data, analyzing the data and so on…just to understand the idea of a line plot.

What better way to start than by taking a survey about when we have birthdays?!?! Oh and sticky notes. I mean, hello, STICKY NOTES! My kiddos wrote their names on the sticky notes, and then they “plotted” them right on the smart board. The rebellion, the scandal! You should have heard their comments! Hilarious!

During the 2nd week of our line plot mini-unit, students spent a couple of days looking at data sets, plotting the data, and finally analyzing.

I would DEFINITELY say that our 2 week line plot mini-unit was an absolute success! My seconds got it, they were engaged, they loved it, and were begging for more line plots! I definitely call that a success!

For an extension activity, they completed an “Ice Cream Flavor” line plot project with their families at home (although this could totally be done as a school project rather than at home!).

So much fun!

Interested in using the resources you see in this post? You can grab them here!