This lesson is designed to teach students information can be organized in many different ways to make it easy for us to read and understand. Uses computer technology.

Materials:

• computer (ClarisWorks, The Graph Club)
• paper
• pencil

Plan:

The instructor will introduce the lesson by asking the students to pretend it is their summer vacation. The students will think about their favorite thing to do in the summer.

After brainstorming some favorite things to do in the summer, the instructor will tell the students we are going to take a survey of the class to collect data, so we need to come up with a question that we want to know about the whole class.

As a class, we will now brainstorm together a question that we could ask each other and learn about our favorite things. I will have the students come up with 4 things they like to do during their summer vacation.

The instructor will also ask the students to pretend they are going to have a special dinner over the weekend. The students can choose to eat with a family member, friend or even a celebrity.

We are not going to survey the class's favorite food. For this set of data we are going to choose 5 things to survey and graph.

1. The instructor will ask the students to look in their math books at the four types of graphs. The students will be looking at bar graphs, line graphs, circle graphs, and pictographs.
2. The instructor will explain to the students the purpose of a graph is to show the overall pattern of what has happened.
3. The instructor will ask the students if they know the difference between the four types of graphs? The students will be given time to respond.
4. The instructor will define the four types of graphs.
5. The instructor will draw a right angle on the board to represent a graph.
6. The instructor will show the students where the title should go and explain to the students that a title represents what the graph is about. The instructor will also explain to the students graphs always have a x-axis and a y-axis. The x-axis tells what was surveyed or what is being graphed and the y-axis tells how many were surveyed and the results of the survey.
7. The instructor will now put 4 choices of favorite activities on the board. The students will be asked to look over the choices and decide which activity is their favorite out of the list.
8. The instructor will put a tally mark under the choices given by the students.
9. The next step, we will arrange the data into a chart. The students will copy this chart down on a piece of paper to be used when creating their graphs.
10. The instructor will now put the 5 choices of foods on the board. The students will be asked to look over the choices and decide which food is their favorite out of the list. The instructor will put a tally mark under the choices given by the students.
11. We will arrange the data into a chart. The students will copy this chart down on a piece of paper to be used when creating their graphs.
12. Next, the instructor will explain the criteria checklist. The criteria checklist will be used to check their graphs. Students will be able to check their own graph by using the criteria checklist. They should have their name, a title, correct spelling, neatness, accurate data, x and y-axis are labeled correctly.
13. The instructor will check the data sheets created by the students for accuracy. If the data sheets are correct they are now ready to graph.
14. The instructor will tell the students they are to use a computer to create their graph. The instructothe students for accuracy. If the data sheets are correct they are now ready to graph.
15. The instructor will tell the students they are to use a computer to create their graph. The instructo