Our Montessori and Open Inquiry kindergartners came together for several math sessions to talk about how graphs work and what they do. To solidify what they learned, students embarked on a collaborative project to collect, organize and analyze data.

Kindergartners began by designing their own surveys – brainstorming a survey topic (like fruit, for example) and creating three options to choose from (mango, pineapple, strawberry), then set up their bar graphs. The following morning, with graphs attached to clipboards, students went off to survey each other. The room filled with the sounds of kindergartners asking each other questions about their preferences.

Once the data was collected, students sat down to color the columns of the bar graphs for easier reading. They looked at the graphs and computed the results for each option, and then combined those results to find the total. Kindergartners from both our Montessori and Open Inquiry tracks enjoyed working together and practicing their surveying, graphing and totaling skills.