Title of Bulletin Board: Graphing the Olympics

Category: Olympics

Suggested Grade Level: All

Materials: Bulletin Board Paper, construction paper, painter's tape

Description:

I think it is very important to teach cross-curricular lessons so the students can see how athletics, physical activity, and "typical" classroom subjects really can go hand in hand. This year I had my 2-4th grade students (although this can work for younger ones too!) vote for their favorite Olympic events after having a week to check out our other bulletin board that showed pictures of all the olympic events. After we tallied all of the results, I made large,wall-sized graph using bulletin board paper and painters tape so the lines are straight. I put the sports on the bottom and numbers by 2s along the left side. Using a paper cutter, I cut columns out of construction paper. The kids are really learning how to use bar-graphs and which was our schools favorite Olympic events!

Additional Information:

Also, tallied up each individual grade's statistics and created separate bar graphs on excel showing the differences and similarities in the each grade's votes. The kids found this very interesting - what a variation among them!