Download Graphing and Probability activities

Graphing, Probability & Patterns
Activity 1 – Give student a copy of the pumpkin in your packet. Have your child color the happy
side of the pumpkin orange and the sad side green. Cut out the pumpkin, fold it in half, and glue
it together. Have your child stand and hold the pumpkin by the stem. They will then drop the
pumpkin. Make a bar graph on a sheet of paper showing which color side the pumpkin landed on.
Do this ten times. Then, talk about the graph using words such as more, less, and equal to.
Discuss with your child which color the pumpkin is more likely or less likely to land on. (It will
be equally the same.)
Activity 2- Have your child make a graph of what flavors of ice cream the people in your house
like. Make a bar graph with your child. Be sure to label all parts of the graph. Another
variation would be to tell how the people in your family like their ice cream. For example: in a
bowl, in a cone, in a milkshake, not at all. Then, make a graph of this information.
Activity 3 – Have your child use some type of cereal with different shapes. (ex. Lucky Charms)
Give your child a small bowl or baggie of the cereal. Have your child sort the marshmallows into
piles by the different types. Then, using the marshmallows, have your child make a bar graph.
Discuss what a good title would be and what you would label the sides. Ask your child questions
about the data. Such as: Which type of marshmallow do I have the most of? Least of? Do I
have the same amount of any of the types of marshmallows? How many stars and pots of gold
do I have altogether?
Activity 4 – Probability – Cut out some paper fish from different colors of construction paper.
Be sure to have more of one color than the others and less of one color. For example, six ten
blue fish, five red fish, five green fish, and one yellow fish. Slide a paper clip onto the end of
each fish. Make a fishing pole using a stick, some string, and a magnet. Tie the string to the
stick and tie the magnet to the end of the string. Use a box to be the pond. Place all of the
fish in the pond. Have your child practice catching a fish, recording the color and throwing the
fish back. Have your child do this twenty times. Then, look at the results with your child. Talk
about why a certain color may have been caught more or less that the other colors. (Because
there was more fish of that color in the pond or less of that color in the pond. That makes the
probability of catching that fish less.)
Activity 5 – Place several colors of socks in a paper bag. For example, 4 red socks, 2 white
socks, and 1 black sock. Have your child reach into the bag and draw out a sock without looking.
Have your child predict what color they will pull out of the bag most often. Have them practice
drawing out a sock 20 times. Always return the sock after you draw it out. Record what color
sock you draw out. Talk about which color sock was chosen most often and least often. Discuss
why this would happen.
Activity 6 - Have your child make patterns using beads. Help your child make and understand
what an AB pattern, an ABC pattern, and an AABB patterns is. You can also practice growing
patterns. For example: one red bead , one green bead, one red bead, two green beads, one red
bead, three green beads, and so on.
Activity 7 – Work on growing number patterns. Have a penny jar with your child. Start with
one penny in the jar. Add 2 more pennies each day. Have your child tell you how many pennies
will be in the jar on the 10th day, 14 day, and so on. They should be able to keep adding on two
pennies to figure out this growing pattern.