Using Graphs to Measure 2

S: Look, Teacher! I asked all of my friends about their favorite kinds of smoothies.

T: How interesting! I know how we can look at this information in a different way.

S: Cool! Will you show me?

T: Of course! You’ve collected data from your friends. Data is information you get by asking questions. We can use tally marks to see which kinds of smoothies your friends like.

S: What are tally marks?

T: Tally marks look like little lines. Every fifth tally mark goes across the others like this to make a bundle.

S: Oh, yeah! I’ve seen those before.

T: Can you draw tally marks in this chart?

S: Sure! 5 of my friends like orange smoothies, so I’ll draw 5 tally marks next to the orange smoothie.

T: Nice work! How many of your friends like chocolate smoothies?

S: Oh, so many! Let’s see…11 of my friends like chocolate smoothies.

T: You did it! Now what about the strawberry smoothies?

S: Only 4 of my friends like strawberry smoothies, so I’ll draw 4 tally marks here.

T: Okay, the tally chart is done! Now we know that 5 friends like orange smoothies, 11 friends like chocolate smoothies, and 4 friends like strawberry smoothies. Are you ready to put this data into a bar graph?

S: Um, what’s a bar graph?

T: A bar graph is a graph that uses bars to show numbers so we can easily understand them. Let’s try it!

S: Okay!

T: This is a bar graph. Here is the title, and here are the labels.

S: And I see that the smoothie flavors are labeled too. See? Orange, chocolate, and strawberry.

T: Well done! Our job is to color the squares to show how many of your friends like each flavor.

S: Okay! I’ll look at my tally chart to remember. It says that 5 friends like orange smoothies.

T: Let’s color 5 squares above the word orange. See how our last square lines up with the number 5?

S: Yes! That’s so cool! My chart also says that 11 of my friends like chocolate smoothies.

T: Okay, how many squares should we color above chocolate?

S: 11!

T: Great! How about strawberry?

S: 4 of my friends like strawberry smoothies.

T: That looks great! You did a great job collecting and organizing this data. The bar graph really helps us see how many friends like each flavor of smoothie.