A teacher sits down at her computer. She searches the phrase, “math graphing worksheets 2nd grade” and is not blessed with easy to use resources, strategies or ideas. Team Lucky Little Learners is here to change that! Keep reading for math graphing lesson ideas that are engaging AND keep students learning!
Engaging Ways to Teach Graphing
Videos
Graphing Worksheets for 2nd Grade
Worksheets are a great tool for teachers to assess student understanding. Check out these example worksheets and lesson ideas that come from Lucky Little Learner's Measurement: Time, Money, Graphing Worksheets.
Birthday Graphing
Kids love talking about their birthdays! So, why not engage learning by allowing them to declare to the class when their birthday is?! Here is a fun way to do this activity:
Download Class Birthdays Worksheet Here
Create a tally chart first
Ask each student when their birthday is, and have the class add a tally to that month. A fun way to select students is to draw name sticks if you have them OR use the Wheel of Names website. (Kids LOVE the name wheel!)
Color in the Bar Graph
Demonstrate how you count the tallies for January, then color in the correct amount on the bar graph for that month. I like to tell my students to use a different color for each month. In fact, teachers can tie science into this! Tell students to pick a color for each month that represents the weather at that time of year. For example, blue for January, yellow for July, etc.
Bonus idea: Sing a rousing round of Happy Birthday to the whole class at the end of the activity. It is sure to produce some giggles.
Does this sound fun & engaging for students, but you don't have a template? Never fear, Lucky Little Learners is here! Check out this Class Birthdays template ready to use!
Graphing Real-Life Objects
Teachers can make graphing lessons tactile, which is important for some learners. Here are some ideas:
Graph Classroom Objects
Decide which objects in your classroom you will graph before the lesson as we all know there are HUNDREDS of choices. Example ideas include colors of pens, different types of books, types of seating (if it varies) or colors of student folders. This gets students up out of their chairs and helping you with the lesson.
Graph Pictures of Objects
For this idea, print out clip art or real photos of different types of animals, buildings, landforms etc. Each student will select one of the objects or draw one out, however you want to run this. (It is fun to tell students to keep their picture hidden and secret until they bring it up to the board.) When a student's name is called, they come and tape their picture on the correct area of the bar graph or tally chart the teacher has created on the whiteboard. Students will be excited to see what each classmate has a picture of!
Independent Practice
In LLL's math graphing worksheets for 2nd Grade bundle, there are Just Beachy & Class Pets worksheets that includes a tally chart and/or bar graph that would be the perfect “posttest” for this activity. It will show you what they know and they will love creating those bar graphs!
Download Class Pet Graphing Here
Pencil Box Graphing
This activity, although engaging, may produce a mess! (But will also make it easier to clean out those pencil boxes!) Have students get out their pencil boxes and dump them out, carefully of course. (You may want to provide trays, baskets or bags to dump them in.) Then, using a blank piece of paper (and maybe a ruler for straight lines) they should create a bar graph or tally chart (teacher preference) of four to five categories of objects they have. Examples: Markers, crayons, pencils, erasers, colored pencils, etc…
Tip: As they are putting the items back in their pencil boxes, have them throw out the little bits of paper and crayon wrapper/all other odd little things they no longer need and tada! Pencils boxes are cleaned.
Like these activities? There are more!
If you like these worksheets, you will be happy to know they are a part of an 82 page bundle that tackles all measurement topics:
Read more about these worksheets here: No Stress With These 2nd Grade Math Worksheets.
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Happy teaching!
This is absolutely fantastic. Students sometimes really struggle with graphing. Choosing topics that are of importance to the students in order to teach this skill is awesome. Thanks for the fabulous work and ideas!