Math ? Pictures and Bars ? Learning About Graphs

Summary
The reading introduces the children to graphs and shows them how to use picture and bar graphs to record everyday data. It is designed to be used as part of a class discussion.

Objectives
• The children will understand how and why we use graphs.

• The children will be able to read and draw a simple picture or bar graph.

Suggested Grades
2nd Grade

Excerpt
Graphs are pictures or charts, which help us to see different amounts easily. We are going to talk about two different kinds of graphs today. A picture graph and a bar graph. The objects we count are called data. The picture graph uses pictures to show the data. Sometimes, if we have lots of data we can use one picture to stand for more than one object. If we do, we call the picture a symbol because it stands for something different (one picture of a dog can stand for 5 dogs). When we use symbols, we need a key to tell people what the symbol stands for.

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