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Learning about our Friends – Graphing Activity for Preschoolers

This week’s topic for the Virtual Book Club for Kids is all about Friendships. As my kids have moved into a new school this year finding out about their friends is one of the skills they are working on. This activity though is great for much younger children and helps with design questions and asking questions, recording the results and representing them in a way that children can see the results easily. So to go with the featured book this week of Should I Share my Ice Cream by Mo Willems we are Learning about our friends by creating bar graphs.

Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.

Materials needed for this graphing activity for preschoolers

Coloured Cardstock

Easel paper

Coloured Markers

Scissors

Cup or other template for a circle

Pre-Activity

Start off by reading the book – if you can’t get hold of the book then other friendship books would work, the main idea is to talk about what our friends like and how their likes may be different than ours. We used the idea of different ice-creams to work on finding out what our friends and family liked.

Our first task was to work on questions – as we discovered “What is your favourite ice-cream?” produced lots and lots of answer – for example, I like Cookie Dough Ice-Cream and my husband likes Fish Food, the kids Chocolate and Strawberry. Instead, we decided it would be better to give options and not open ended.

“Do you like Chocolate, Strawberry or Vanilla Ice-Cream best?” and went and asked our friends and family the question.

Creating your Bar Graphs with kids

  1. On some coloured cardstock draw around a circle template (we used the bottom of a cup).Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.
  2. Then cut out the circles.
  3. On each circle draw a face.Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.
  4. Label the face with the name of each of the friends you asked a question of.Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.
  5. Now at the bottom draw 3 ice-cream cones – I drew the outline and left my daughter to colour them in.Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.
  6. One Strawberry (pink), one chocolate (brown) and one vanilla (yellow).
  7. Now look at what your friends liked and add their faces about the ice-cream of their choice.Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.

Questions to Ask after the Bar Graph is madeBar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.

When your child has created the bar graph – then ask some questions e.g.

  • Which Ice-Cream Flavour is the most popular?
  • Which Ice-Cream Flavour do people like the least?
  • How many people like chocolate/vanilla/strawberry?
  • How many friends did we ask?
  • What other ice-cream flavours do you think we could ask about?
  • What other things could we discover about our friends?

Extensions

With older children instead of creating bar graphs with faces of their friends use squared paper and colour in the squares above the ice-cream flavours.

With a group of young children cut out faces from photographs of the children and get the children to place their own pictures above their favourite flavours of ice-cream. Then discuss as a group the results.

Books about Friendships for Toddlers and Preschoolers

Each week on the Virtual Book Club for Kids we will be sharing a featured book but also recommending some additional titles that are great for toddlers and preschoolers. With these week’s theme the featured book is Should I Share my Ice Cream by Mo Willems ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk – a favourite children’s author of mine and the kids.

 Friends by Helme Heine ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Stick and Stone by Beth Ferry and Tom Lichtenheld ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Best Friends for Frances by Russell Hoban ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Enemy Pie by Derek Munson ~ amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

Virtual Book Club for Kids Friendship Theme Activities

Each week on the Virtual Book Club for Kids the hosts and co-hosts for the week will be bringing you hands-on activities for the featured book and theme. This week check out our cohosts posts below to bring the theme to life for your kids. To find out more about the Virtual Book Club for Kids and how you can join our Facebook Group to get lists in advance and additional activities each week click through and learn more.

Simple Friendship Concentration Game from Toddler Approved

Spelling Names Ice-Cream Centre from Still Playing School

Kind Words Sensory lesson from Preschool Powol Packets

Listening Games with Elephant and Piggie from Inspiration Laboratories

Making Pumpkin Ice-Cream with Friends from The Educators’ Spin On It

Cupcake Cones from Kori at Home

Friendship Ice-Cream is a Fun Way to Practice Sharing from Mama Smiles

How to Make a Catapult from JDaniel4’s Mom

Paper Tube Friendship Bracelets from Clare’s Little Tots

How to Make Colour Mixing Ice-Cream from Peakle Pie

Preschool Pencil Control from Craft Create Calm

How to make Happy Faces in a Sand Tray from Big Owl, Little Owl, Whitty Hoots

Share the Ice-Cream Fine Motor Game from Views from a Step Stool

Pass the Ice-Cream Sharing Activity for Preschoolers from Sunny Day Family

Gross Motor Core Strengthing Activity for a Group from Sugar Aunts

Friendship Ice Cream Throw from Adventures of Adam

Build 2D and 3D Ice Cream Cones with Friends from Kara Carrero

Piggie and Elephant Shape Sorting Activity from Mosswood Connection


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Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.

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Bar Graphs for kids, a simple hands-on math activity for preschoolers to find out about their friend's and family's likes and represent that in a graph.

2 Comments

  1. Also, the pinterest, facebook, twitter, stumble and google boxes cover the directions too. I don’t know how to print the directions without those boxes covering up the important portions of the directions. Can you help?

  2. Hi, I love your activity but when trying to print it to refer to when I am not at my computer, it prints out as 23 pages with lots of big blank spaces and with ads covering the directions. Is there a way to print this so it uses less paper and the ads don’t cover the words?

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