Graphing Our Favorite Foods

Activity Overview

Learning how to categorize and sort objects is an important way that children make sense of the world. Creating categories gives students ways to organize new information about the world around them. Growing children take new information, compare it to what they already have learned, and find out how to apply the information to approach a new level of understanding. This activity asks students to not just organize new information, but also gather their own data. Additionally, students will explore new ways of sharing their findings by using a bar graph. This new analytical tool gives students a visual way to represent what they discovered while they were gathering data.

What You Need

• Recording sheet

• Scissors

• Large construction paper OR several sheets of standard paper taped together on the back

• Markers

Steps

1. Make your own, or print a few copies of the recording sheet to collect data from a new group of members in your community each day. Represent each response with a drawing OR cut and glue photos selected by grownup.

2. Physically cut out the responses to “What is your favorite food?” and sort your data. Look for patterns. Ask, “Are any of these alike? Can you make any categories?” (dessert, breakfast, takeout, etc.).

3. Sort the data in categories of your choice. If it is helpful, to support this process, use blank paper with each category title to visually identify sorting the responses onto “mats.”

4. Once the information is sorted, a grown up can help the student use large construction paper (or several pieces of paper taped together) to make a vertical and horizontal line to create the template for a bar graph. Title the categories across the bottom of the page. Starting from zero at the bottom of line and increasing as you move vertically, label the vertical line to keep track of the number of responses in each category. Finally, stack each response from the category to create “bars,” and organize the data on the bar graph.

Guiding Questions

• How would you describe this food?

• Which foods are similar? In what ways?

• What categories can we make?

• What observations can you make about the data you have collected? For example, if members from one part of your family all identify one special dish as their “favorite food,” what does that indicate? Or did one special local restaurant influence peoples’ “favorite food?”

Extensions

• Use the bar graph information to answer specific questions:

  • How many are in ___ category?

  • Compare the categories: how many more does ___ have than ___?