When thinking of graphing, pie charts and bar graphs may come to mind. With kindergarten graphs concepts are elementary. A worksheet may feature an illustration of several dinosaurs in a forest. On the same worksheet, the graphing portion below the illustration may feature dinosaur head illustrations with a blank beside each image. The kindergartener writes the number of that type of dinosaur counted in the illustration. Other graphing activities include: How many T-Rex or Stegosaurus dinosaurs? Which dinosaur is there more of? Which dinosaur is there less of? How many dinosaurs total? How many long dinosaurs? How many short dinosaurs? Children can write numbers or draw tally marks to indicate quantity.
Gummy or fruit snack dinosaur graphing activities are fun. Each child is given a sealed package of dinosaur treats. Give each student a paper with colored circles: blue, red, green, yellow, purple and orange. Have the students open the treat bag and sort the dinosaur treats onto the appropriate color: for example, green dinosaurs go on the green circle. Have the student write how many of each color dinosaur is in the circle beneath the circle. Allow the students to draw a box around the color that had the highest number of dinosaurs. Students should draw a circle around the color that had the fewest dinosaur treats. The fun part of this activity is that kindergartners get to eat the treats when the activity concludes.
Kindergartners can look at an illustration of various long (or big) dinosaurs, such as the Apatosaurus, and of assorted short (or small) dinosaurs, such as the Velociraptor, and indicate on a chart how many big dinosaurs there are. According to Baby Center, kindergartners are cognitively able to compare sizes, colors and visual measurements of objects. For example, a student can look at an image of two dinosaurs and pick out which is the largest. Label a chart of squares along the bottom with big, small, long, short and other descriptions. Designate a crayon color for each description, such as a green crayon for big. Allow the students to color in a box above the description for every big dinosaur in the illustration, ultimately forming a bar graph.
Use a marker to divide a piece of poster board into vertical columns and then divide each column into squares according to how many students are in the class. For instance, if there are 18 students in the class, each column will have 18 squares. Glue or tape an image of a dinosaur at the top of each column. Use a different color marker or crayon for each column. Ask the class, by pointing to the first dinosaur image, how many of the students think that dinosaur is their favorite dinosaur. Color in the appropriate number of squares in that column. Proceed to the next column. When you are finished you will have a bar graph representing how many children favor each dinosaur pictured.