DIY graphing mat...with a little help from Mr. Snowman!

We've been working a A LOT on graphing ever since we've been back from our Christmas holidays.  Here's a fun and easy way that I introduce graphing.

I've always wanted a fancy graphing mat, you know, the ones that they sell for WAY too much money in the teacher catalogues?

So since I never planned on spending that kind of money, I thought I'd make my own graphing mat.

All you need is a shower curtain and duct tape and....voila!

It's actually really durable too!

(I made a few different versions since they were so cheap and easy to make - 2 column and 4 column graphing mats)

 

 

We were graphing the clothing Mr. Snowman was wearing.

I placed all these pieces around the carpet and the graph in the middle.  The students had so much fun choosing the pieces and placing them on the graph.  It really taught them the concept of graphing!

 

I then had them translate the information to a recording sheet by reading the top portion and graphing the results on the bottom. 

 

 

 You can find this activity in my best-selling Winter Wonderland unit.

I just updated the unit to include the large reproducible graphics for your graphing mat.