Give the kids objects such as leaves, bananas and even their own hands to trace onto the grid paper. After the students trace the objects, ask them to count the number of squares that the object takes up. This activity is a great jumping point for the concept of area.
Ask the students to draw various sizes of squares on the graph paper and use the illustration to explain the concept of scale.
Read a word problem for the children dealing with bar graphs and help the students create a bar graph with the information from the word problem using the grid paper.