Real Graphs

Today we moved from Venn Diagrams into graphing.  I began again with the large masking tape Venn Diagram on the floor, telling students that we would sort ourselves once more and this time we would also count to see which category had more people in it.  I asked students to stand in circle A if they would rather be a tiger or in circle B if they would rather be a dolphin.  Because they had to choose which they would rather be, no one needed to stand in the "both" overlap.  Then I began to count how many kids were in each group and feigned difficulty, double counting and losing track as I went.  Since Venn Diagrams are great for sorting, but not so great for comparing numbers, I dramatized thinking of a better solution-- a graph.  So I ripped up the masking tape circles and created two masking tape lines, this time asking students to stand in one line if they would rather be a tiger and in the other if they would rather be a dolphin.  Again, I dramatized trying to count the groups, having a much easier time finding out that in this class, more people would rather be a dolphin.  

Just as we moved from the concrete to the abstract with "Not Boxes" and Venn Diagrams, I tried to move from concrete to abstract graphing in a series of small steps.  After making human graphs, we worked together to make a picto-graph with each child drawing a picture of the animal they would prefer to be-- this time, an eagle or a whale.