What's Your Shoe Size? - Dot Plots

I feel like its been a long time since I have blogged about actually class activities. But, here goes! 

And since it's Saturday, I am linking with Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching for some motivation tips. 

Mine today, make the lesson relate to them and relate to your students. 

We are studying measures of variation/graphs and all things statistics! 

The first graph I introduced was dot plots. 

I decided to create dot plots with each of my classes about their shoe sizes. 

They were given a "dot" for their data. A smaller one of course. 

Then we made a human dot plot. I did this because I had no clue what numbers we would encounter and this helped me decide how to create my charts. 

I only made them turn around for this blog. This human dot plot was more for me than them because it was hard for them to see the distribution. 

Next, we made the number line together and then plotted our shoe sizes. 

From that we were able to discuss the graph. We found the median, mode and range. We also talked about the spread and identified characteristics like clusters and gaps. 

Students then made a foldable for their journals  to recreate their class data. They wrote about the findings in the top of the shoe. 

                                   

The activity was fun and oh the discussions we had about shoe sizes, growth, etc.... It was crazy for some classes. It was so interesting to see the differences and how so many of my girls have large feet! They hate it of course, but since I am 5'10 with a size 11 shoe and I have been 5'10  and had a size 10 shoe since middle school, I am able to relate to them. 

I wanted to post this today (Saturday Sparking Motivation) because of what happened after school regarding this activity. I was in the office talking to my principal and secretary. I teach both of their daughters. One daughter was actually there. We were talking about the other daughter who was absent due to a livestock show. It was just normal chit chat. It came up about her make up work and I said, " We did dot plots today, she will have to do a worksheet, it will be boring. We did a fun activity today" At that point the student standing there said, "yea, it was fun." Who cares where the rest of the conversation went, a STUDENT said it was fun. Mission Accomplished! 

I want my students to learn, but I want my students to ENJOY learning. It is why I bring work home with me and why I create activities and why I stalk blogs! 

HAPPY SATURDAY!