“Today we are going to continue to focus on graphically representing data. We will examine the frequency of words in nursery rhymes. We will record and display the data we collect using tally marks and bar graphs. Who has a suggestion for a nursery rhyme?” (For words to some nursery rhymes, see M-1-6-2_Nursery.doc.)
“Does everyone know the nursery rhyme ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb?’ Take time to review it as I write it out.” Write the nursery rhyme on the chart paper. Display the words. Have students sing the nursery rhyme with you. Ask volunteers to point out words that appear multiple times in the nursery rhyme. Have students note any patterns that they hear. Ask them if they think they can make any predications based on the patterns they hear. Circle the words in different color markers. (To make this activity more engaging, students could have their own copy of the nursery rhyme and circle the words in different color markers while the teacher does it on chart paper.)
Have students observe the circled words in the rhyme. “Which words occur most often? Are there words that do not repeat? Is it easy or hard to determine how often the words occur?” Point out that the pattern of the rhyme helps us to predict that the words little and lamb would have the most circles. Have students repeat the rhyme, paying particular attention to the pattern.
Lead students to see that to find how often words repeat, they have to repeatedly read through the rhyme. Point out that this is not an efficient use of time. “How might you find a more efficient way of recording the frequency of words in a nursery rhyme?” Have students brainstorm ideas. Lead them to see that charts and tables are good ways to record the frequency of an event.
“Let’s set up a tally chart. In the left column we will list words from the nursery rhyme. In the right column we will use tally marks to record each occurrence of the word.” Together, choose a word that repeats often in the nursery rhyme (Mary, had, a, little, lamb). Write each word from the nursery rhyme on a separate row of the tally chart. Have the class read through the nursery rhyme. For each occurrence of a word, have a student place a tally mark in the tally chart. Ask students how they can use the tally chart to analyze the rhyme. “How many words are in the song? Which word occurs most often? Which words occur the least number of times?” Allow students time to share their thoughts.
“Now we are going to extend the activity by graphing the frequency of the words in the nursery rhyme.” Let students work alone, using the information in the tally charts to create bar graphs (M-1-6-1_Blank Tally Chart.doc and M-1-6-1_Blank Horizontal Bar Graph.doc). Remind them to include a title and labels. Once the graphs are complete, have students compare their work and discuss the data shown. “Which format is easiest for analyzing the data?” Try extending the activity by having students work with a partner to create a second bar graph that shows the frequency of the words in order from most frequent to least frequent. Encourage students to discuss their thought processes when creating this graph.
Take time to monitor partners as they work to create the second bar graph. Explain that even though the order of the data has been changed, the data itself is still the same. Have students observe the revised graph and determine the most frequently used word and the least frequently used word. Let students compare the two graphs. Listen to students’ explanations as a way to assess whether they fully understand the concept of recording frequency.
Extension:
Use the activity below to tailor the lesson to meet the needs of your students during the year.
- Routine: Have students select several different pages from a class reader, and then count how often a particular word occurs on each page. For example, students might look for the word and or the. Create a tally chart on the board listing the different pages. Tally the number of times the word appears on each of the listed pages.
- Small Groups: Students who need opportunities for additional learning can work in small groups to gather data and create a graph. They should choose a topic for which the frequency is easy to tabulate—number of letters in the name of each student’s street, amount of money in each student’s pocket, or number of each type of coin in a handful of change (real or fake). The goal for the practice would be to get through the entire process and to avoid getting slowed down by the data-gathering/sorting steps.
- Expansion 1: Have students brainstorm other data that can be measured in frequency. Have them work with a partner to create a bar graph based on their data. Encourage students to display their data in either ascending or descending order. Have them discuss how such a display affects their observations. The intention is to encourage students to look at data with an eye toward displaying it in the most efficient manner.
Students are encouraged to analyze the data, noting patterns. This helps them compare and evaluate data. Students build upon the opening activity by taking the data from the tally charts and building a bar graph. Students reinforce their analysis of the data by arranging it in order.
- Expansion 2:Have students compare data found from two different class readers. Ask questions like:
- “How were the graphs the same?”
- “How were the graphs different?”
- “How many more times was a certain word used than another?”
