Line Graph Lesson Plan & PowerPoint

Lauren Frisina

Unit Title: Graphing Grade Level: 5

Lesson Title: Interpreting line graphs

Standards: 1,2,3,5, & 7

Performance Objective:

By the end of this lesson, the students will be able to:

J Interpret a line graph

J Collect data

J Construct a line graph

J Observe the difference in line graphs

Materials:

J Pen

J Teacher prepared PowerPoint Presentation

J Graph paper

J Newspaper with yesterdays weather

Motivation: 10 minutes

· This week we have been talking about different types of graphs. What are graphs useful for? Today I want you to help me make a graph that shows what the temperature was yesterday. What kind of graph can we make to show this?

Developmental Activity 12 minutes

Ø Does anyone know the difference between a bar graph and a line graph?

Ø A line graph is a graph used to show change over time.

Ø Would we use a line graph to show how many people like pizza, how much it rained each month, and how many people live in East Meadow?

Ø Would we use a line graph to show how when your birthdays are? That may be a confusing question for students because they are dealing with months. Point out that a line graph shows change. A birthday is something that stays constant through time

Ø Can we think of things that do not stay constant temperature, stock market, miles traveled in a car, calories burned in a day, amount of babies that are born in a year.

Ø How a line slants and how steep the line is tells a lot about our information.

Ø A line graph ALWAYS has a title, and a label for each axis.

Ø How do we draw a line graph?

Ø A line graph has an axis on each base line.

Ø What is an axis? An axis is either the horizontal line (called x) or the vertical line (called y) that form the base lines of a graph.

Ø Draw the outline of a line graph.

Ø Draw a graph on the board and have the students graph it on the black board.

Ø Explain the importance of picking an appropriate interval (discuss interval) for both the y-axis and x-axis.

Ø We usually start with zero on the y-axis.

Ø Explain that it is not necessary to have specific labels if we are trying to draw conclusions. Show examples.

Ø Students will study a variety of different line graphs and answer some questions in groups.

Ø We will then discuss what each graph is about and what it tells us.

Ø We will then construct our own line graph as a class based on yesterdays weather.

Ø The students will then have to create their own graphs using information on a teacher prepared worksheet.

Wrap-up 5 minutes

Ø Today we learned about line graphs, and what they are useful for. Do you think line graphs are useful? Often times people in politics use line graphs to represent information. However, the line graphs that they construct are often misleading. Can anyone think of how they may make these graphs misleading? This week we will learn about the different ways that we can construct a line graph.