Analyze and Plot!

It’s Ava’s favorite time of year: springtime!

Ava and her family build a birdhouse every year for their garden. They have quite a collection!

They have made all kinds of birdhouses and have used every color of the rainbow to match their garden’s flowers.

This year, the design will have to be amazing to top all of the birdhouses they have made before. They will need to design a great birdhouse!

Ava’s family has chosen the perfect design for the new birdhouse. Ava looks at the birdhouse plan. She and her family read the instructions together.

This birdhouse will need quite a few extra tools and materials to build. Ava wants to make sure that they don’t forget anything when they go to the hardware store.

Ava plans for the trip to hardware store. She writes down the items they need, to get, such as a measuring tape, a hammer, nails, a saw, wood, paintbrushes…. Oh, no!

The list is getting too long. How will she ever remember what to get?

Ava has a plan. She creates a line plot on her clipboard. She writes down all of the materials on the line plot. Then, she puts an X above each item to show how many of each one her family needs to buy.

This is perfect! Now Ava can keep track of all of the materials she needs for the birdhouse project.

Ava and her family use the line plot to get their materials at the hardware store. Ava double-checks her line plot to make sure that she has the right number of each item.

Her line plot says that they need three boxes of nails. Check! They got the right amount.

The line plot says to get two pieces of wood. Check! They got two big pieces for their project.

Ava looks at her line plot again. It says they need three paintbrushes. Oh, no! She only has two. She grabs another paintbrush. She is so glad she had the line plot to remind her how many paintbrushes to get. She wants to make sure her brother gets to paint this year

One last look at her line plot shows her that she only needs one measuring tape, one saw, and one more hammer. That makes her list complete.

Ava and her family have all of their materials. They are ready to start building. Ava calls everyone out to the garden so they can get started. This is going to be the best birdhouse project ever!

Ava is so glad she had a line plot to help her remember everything she needed for the birdhouse. A line plot helped her find and count everything she needed!

Line plots can be very helpful!