Teach the specialized vocabulary of graphing the same way vocabulary for other content areas is taught. Create a set of memory cards that shows a graph (bar, line and pie,) or its name on each card. Students flip over two cards at a time to find matches. For more practice, use software like "Loop Writer," or create sequential cards by hand to play "I have, who has." Students name the graph pictured at the top of their card, and then read the question at the bottom. The student with the answer to the question reads his card next.
Have students graph their progress on a competitive task, such as turning in homework assignments, reading books or collecting canned goods for a food bank. Students can create bar or line graphs of their progress and interpret the graphs. This is a great way to get several classrooms involved in data collection and analysis. Have students answer questions about the average, median, modes and range of the data. Offer a prize for the student, class or group with the greatest average or total.
There are many games available for graphing practice. Play the "Bar Graph Sorter" game available free on the Interactivate website. Students create a bar graph by dragging and dropping shapes onto the graph to sort by shape or color. Although it is not a game, "The Graph Club 2.0" software by Tom Snyder Productions lets students create graphs using picture symbols in an interactive, engaging environment that helps students to understand that abstract graphs represent concrete data.
Give students a game spinner, either borrowed from another board game or created for the activity. Have the students spin, record tally marks for each spin, and create a graph of the data. Have students compete by predicting which symbol will come up most often. Vary the activity by changing the size of each section on the spinner, and asking students to adjust their predictions. Students can also do this using the "Spinner" activity in the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives online.