Education Technology


Reading Picture Graphs

Activity Overview

Students learn to read simple picture graphs with the help of a calculator.

Objectives

Students will explore the following concepts in this activity:

  • whole numbers
  • multiplication
  • patterns
  • graphing
  • addition

About the Lesson

Talk with students about collecting data for a picture graph. Give an example to students: Suppose every student in the school voted for their favorite subject. How large do you think the graph would be if every piece of data became an individual picture on the picture graph?

Discuss with students how putting votes together in groups of 5, 8, 10, or 20 would effect the appearance of that graph.

Distribute the student activity sheet to the class and have students read the sample picture graph, and translate the pictures back to data. Students will use their calculators and the constant function to count the data.