This activity focuses on numbers that are familiar to students. The activity sheet serves as a way to introduce students to the teacher and to each
other.
Ask each student to bring in a recent photograph of herself or himself to mount on the activity sheet. Distribute a copy of the Numbers and Me activity sheet to each student.
Have the students fill in the personal information just below the section for the photograph.
Direct the students to fill in the "More About Me" section at the bottom of the activity sheet. You may need to help the students determine their height and shoe size.
Then, divide the class into small cooperative learning groups, and have each student in the group share his or her data from the "More About Me" section. As a group, they can draw conclusions about their data, such as, "None of us have pets," or, "Each of us has at least two brothers or sisters." As students are having discussions about their information, circulate and ask probing questions to groups that are having difficulty.
As a class, discuss the observations made by each group, and determine if they are applicable to the entire class. For instance, if a group makes the claim, "We are all between 44 and 48 inches tall," determine if that statement is also true for the entire class.
To conclude the lesson, use the NCTM Bar Grapher tool to create a bar graph of the class data for Item # 1 under the "More About Me" section.
For example, the horizontal axis could represent the number of people per household, and the vertical axis could represent the number of students with that response.
Students may also individually record the class graph on grid paper.
Lead a class discussion in which students make comparisons and draw conclusions based upon the data presented in the bar graph.
