Learning About Tables and Bar Charts

Math is always more fun when it's about something you love.

To make him understand how bar graphs worked, we first started with a story. You could start with a drawing, a picture or coloring sheets etc.

During this time, he was going through a Mr Men phase. So naturally, ours was a story about the Mr Men and the number of pets that each of his favorite characters had. We then learnt about the table. Not the table you sit at for dinner, but the table you put your information in (attempt at a joke ;). We learnt about columns and rows. If your child is young, it's ok if he doesn't really remember which is which. Introducing it to them is good enough. Since he doesn't see much, everything is super sized as in the picture.

As I told the story, I'd ask him to write a tally mark next to the correct name. I used the words 'column' and 'rows' repeatedly to get him used to the idea.

Once we finished collecting our 'data' (another new word), we used it to answer questions. First I asked him to ask me how many pets belonged to any one of his characters, and I made a big show of how I got the answer. Then came his turn to get answers from the bar graph. We took turns asking who had a certain number of pets or how many pets belonged to whom. Questions like who has the most or has the fewest, or who has the same number of pets can all be asked. Once we were done with our lesson, we hung our new graph up since it was so colorful and pretty.

So that's it! It doesn't matter what your little one is crazy about. You can use it in their lessons. This is a simple and fun way to introduce bar graphs and tables to a 7 year old. Give it a go!