Thursday, September 11, 2014

Birthday Graph

Birthday charts. Every teacher has one, usually it's a teacher designed "name, date, etc" poster. I adapted this from a teacher whose room I worked in during college and love using it as a first day math/about me activity. 

It's a birthday graph. The children are each given a little birthday cake. On it, they write their name, and the number their birthday is in their month (4 or 10, etc). Then they decorate it. 
After they've decorated it, we build our graph on the white board using magnets to tack them up. Then we talked about what we observed, this was a great way to get our math brains working.
Since I teach 2 sections of third grade, but we are one big class, I did this twice, then built the final graph. The second day of school, we talked about how it looked different then each individual section's graph and checked to see if our predictions of the combined graph were accurate or not.

Great way to start talking about math and get to know the kids and make a birthday chart!

Little by Little
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at

15 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 11, 2014 at 5:42 AM

    Cute, I remember doing this when I was in elementary school.

    -Nicky @ awesomeville

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  2. Dara @ Not In JerseySeptember 11, 2014 at 9:02 AM

    fun idea!

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  3. Heather{Our Life In a Click}September 11, 2014 at 9:39 AM

    You make learning fun!! I love this idea!

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  4. tinajoSeptember 11, 2014 at 9:45 AM

    That´s really cute! :-)

    http://tinajoathome.com/

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  5. Kim StevensSeptember 11, 2014 at 10:54 AM

    What a fun way to teach while they learn! xo

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  6. NickiSeptember 11, 2014 at 11:02 AM

    Cake and crayons - now that is how math should be taught. Very cute idea. No April though, interesting!

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  7. Kim Cunningham September 11, 2014 at 11:39 AM

    That's so fun and a great way to build interest around math. Everybody loves to talk about birthdays!

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  8. BuckeroomamaSeptember 11, 2014 at 12:26 PM

    I love how math is taught these days... a far cry from how they taught math back when I was in primary school.

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  9. Gina KleinworthSeptember 11, 2014 at 12:27 PM

    Very cool - I think hands on graphs really draw them in. Great job!!

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  10. carol l mckennaSeptember 11, 2014 at 1:15 PM

    Making math creative and fun ~ Classroom looks very inviting and organized ~ Happy week to you and your class!

    artmusedog and carol (A Creative Harbor)

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  11. UnknownSeptember 11, 2014 at 2:53 PM

    I love to see all the different ways the kids decorate their cakes!

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  12. Carol BlackburnSeptember 11, 2014 at 5:27 PM

    Education and Ms. Benjamin = FUN :)

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  13. Maureen @ Josephina BallerinaSeptember 11, 2014 at 9:03 PM

    Hi Tamar,
    I'm a quilter. The colors in that last photo are very appealing to me.
    :) maureen
    PS You can put MY cake in that empty April slot!

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  14. Jade @ Tasting GraceSeptember 13, 2014 at 1:18 AM

    I was going to make a totally inappropriate joke about math and birthdays and figuring out popular times for conception...but I'll refrain. :)

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  15. ShoshanahSeptember 14, 2014 at 10:53 AM

    Poor April! It doesn't get any birthdays to celebrate. I just think it's kind of funny that it all worked out that way.

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