Favorite things to do in the snow!

After our pretty snow on Wednesday, we did a graph today of our favorite things to do in the snow.

Before we made our graph, we talked about what season we are in right now and the things that we can do that are specific to Winter. The children brainstormed a list including things like drinking hot chocolate, sledding, ice skating, and making snowmen. One silly girl decided to say that we could go swimming and then immediately said "I said that on purpose, that is summer!". It was great to see that they are beginning to develop an understanding of the different seasons that we have.

After making our list, students got to choose between making snowballs, ice skating, sledding, and building a snowman for our graph. After each child came and put up a person for their choice, we discussed the most (ice skating) and the least (making snowballs). The children did a great job making and reading the graph!

We are going to begin doing a graph every week in Kindergarten. I got the idea from www.kellyskindergarten.com and I think it is fantastic! Each week we will have a topic ranging from seasonal questions like "which Easter egg is the prettiest" to choice questions like "which book is your favorite".

Our school has been focusing on improving math skills this year and by having a weekly graph, we can tie in math practice with a fun activity that the children love to do! They make graphs almost into a contest of whose choice wins!

These graphs help us to practice organizing and understanding data and also ties in with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study:
Objective 4.01 Collect and organize data as a group activity.
Objective 4.02 Display and describe data with concrete and pictorial graphs as a group activity.

I'm looking forward to implementing this fun strategy in our classroom while learning more about the children's likes and dislikes at the same time!