Rachel's first graph

Rachel has been learning about charts and graphs in kindergarten, as well as surveys and polling. Her class does surveys as a regular part of homework.

The other day while we were waiting for Drew to come home, Rachel took a noisemaker she had gotten in extended day and started blowing it, loudly. We hit upon the idea of seeing where it would be loudest in different parts of the house -- at the top of the stairs, in her closet, in the guest room closet, in the study, in the kitchen and the playroom.

She made me make a list of all the places, and then we decided to rank them in terms of how loudly I heard the noisemaker, and THEN we decided to do a "dot chart," as she called it.

So I explained the concept of the x/y axis, then we labeled each one (loudness level, from 1 to 100, was on the x axis, and name of room was on the y axis). And then I told her how loud each blast of the noisemaker had been in each room, and we plotted the dots on the graph. Then we drew a line and connected them.

You could not believe how cool she thought that was, and I can't believe my kid understands how to chart and graph different events. The things they learn in kindergarten these days...