National curriculum content

• Interpret and present discrete and continuous data using appropriate graphical methods, including bar charts and time graphs
• Solve comparison, sum and difference problems using information presented in bar charts, pictograms, tables and other graphs

Lesson objectives

1. Interpret charts
2. Comparison, sum and difference
3. Interpret line graphs
4. Draw line graphs

What we want children to know

• Understand and use a greater range of scales in their representations
• Begin to relate the graphical representation of data to recording change over time
• Gather their own data using tally charts and then present the information in a bar chart
• Use addition and subtraction to answer questions accurately and ask their own questions about the data in pictograms, bar charts and tables
• Use their knowledge of scales to read a time graph accurately and create their own graphs to represent continuous data
• Use addition and subtraction to answer questions accurately and ask their own questions about the data in line graphs

What skills we want children to develop

Use knowledge to solve reasoning and problem solving questions such as:

Explanation

Alex wants to use a pictogram to represent the favourite drinks of everyone in her class.

Alex says, “I will use an image of a glass to represent 5 children.”

Explain why this is not a good idea.

Interpreting Data

Class 4 grew a plant.

They measured the height of the plant every week for 6 weeks.

The table shows the height of the plant each week.

Week 1     4cm

Week 2     7cm

Week 3     9cm

Week 4     12cm

Week 5     14cm

Week 6     17cm

Create a line graph to represent this information.

What scale would you use on the x and y axes? Between which two weeks did the plant reach a height of 10 cm?

Mathematical Talk

• What are the different ways to present data?
• How is the line graph different to a bar chart?
• Which is the x and y axis? What do they represent?
• What do you notice about the scale of the graph?
• How could you make sure you read the graph accurately?
• What data could we collect as a class?
• What questions could we ask about the data?