How do we make graphing interesting? Current? Applicable to our older, junior students? Well, right now our country is gearing up for a federal election... which is a GREAT source of applicable data! This week students analyzed the data surrounding voter turnout in all of our federal elections. Did you know that one of our highest voter turnouts ever was our very first election in 1867? Interestingly, our lowest voter turnout was in 2008 (only 59%). We graphed the data (Grade 6s had to actually figure out the % of voter turnout, whereas most Grade 5s were given the %s) and then we began to analyse it. We talked about "trends" and discovered that in general, voter turnout in Canada is on the decline. What can we do to get those who can vote to actually vote? Well, something our creative Grade 5 and 6 students can do is to design posters encouraging YOU to cast your ballot! This was a fun media literacy project, covering ideas such as: -creating clear/catchy titles -using applicable photos -citing data trends -some students decided to send "subliminal messages" via their posters (ie, Even though the poster just encourages everyone to vote in general, using the colour blue might send the message to vote Conservative. The image of trees and nature might make voters think of the Green Party. A red background might sway others to think of the Liberals, while an orange image might make voters think of the NDP). We're going to put up a few of the posters around Kanata (Sobeys, Starbucks, bus stops, etc) to encourage people to vote! This was also a lesson in media safety (no names or no information to locate us). Take a look at a few of the designs - I think we have some graphic designers on our hands... The posters below have a *bit* of a hidden message....
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Plus, it's not very fun... or is it? Well, this week we had a BLAST calculating mean, median, mode and range using playing cards. Watch this and this! Check out our activities below to learn about how we determine the "middle" in different data scenarios. Also, re-watch this video with your child if you are interested in learning when median and mode might actually be more useful than using the mean (which we usually use). We also made posters that are up around the classroom to remind us of the differences between each one.
We are beginning our year with graphing, spiralled with number sense (since we will be graphing some large numbers, we need to understand them!). Some graphing expectations we will be covering (in plain language): -collecting real-world data that is more difficult (ex. graphing election poll results) -creating broken line graphs and continuous line graphs -"reading" more difficult graphs (What is the trend? What does this graph tell us? What conditions must be kept constant while collecting this data?) -graphing with larger numbers -different scales (and keeping that scale spacing EVEN) -mean, median and mode - and what they actually tell us! Some number sense expectations we will be covering in September: -very large numbers (up to hundred thousand for Gr 5s and millions for Gr 6s) -very small numbers (down to hundredths for Gr 5s and thousandths for Gr 6s) -how to verbally 'say' large and small numbers -comparing and ordering #s (including decimals) -rounding decimals To make graphing FUN, we learned about our heart rates and took our pulses while we were resting, standing, walking, doing jumping jacks and fast knee highs. We created broken line graphs of our own information with descriptive titles. Next, we took our pulses every minute while running around the school yard and then created continuous line graphs with that data. Kids are naturally curious about themselves, so they enjoyed exploring what their heart rate told them about themselves!
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Mrs JorgensenI'm a math nerd and think math jokes are funny. Not all of them though - just sum. Archives
March 2020
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