When Is Your Birthday?

Designed by: Marian Davis, Meadowfield Elementary

1) CORE CURRICULUM OBJECTIVE(S): Organize, record, and communicate data (such as bar graph, picture graph, etc.).    (KSP1-3)

GRADE LEVEL:  Kindergarten   SUBJECT:  Math

2) OVERVIEW: Students will collect and organize information about their birthdays.  They will describe the information that is collected by a pictorial representation of the data.

3) FOCUS/ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How can data be organized?  How can data be recorded?  How can data be communicated?

4) TIME FRAME:  Two 45 minute lessons.

5) RESOURCES/MATERIALS:

Calendars

8 1/2" X 11" paper

Clothesline

Clothes pins

Computer

Crayons

6) CULMINATING ASSESSMENT: Teacher observation/students' ability to record data on a bar graph.

When Is Your Birthday?-Rubric

7) INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Day 1-45 minutes

1. Begin this activity by asking students what a birthday is to them.  List basic ideas on the board.

2.  Ask a few students to tell what month their birthday is in.  Write the months on the board in the order that they are mentioned.

3. After all students have given the month of their birthday, have a discussion about how many months there are.

4. Ask students if all the months are listed on the board. Continue to list as many months as the students can think of.

5. If students do not know that there are 12 months or what the missing months are, show them how to find out for sure by going to the class calendar to collect data.

6. Set out a stack of cards for each month on  a large table. (The months do not have to be in order).

7. Have students come up in pairs and help each other select the month of their birthday from the stacks of cards.  (Teacher can help as needed).

8. Have students write in their birth dates and names on the cards.      Example:    February 3        John

9. Hold a discussion as to how they could organize their data so that they would know how many students had a birthday in each month.  Ask students how they could use their cards to find out.  (Follow one of their suggestions as to how they would organize the data).

10.  Tell students to find others with the same month and make a group.

11.  After students have found their groups, ask for some observations as to what they can see by looking around room.  (Encourage them to use language that describes comparison, such as, same, more, less, bigger than, smaller than, etc.).

12. Ask each group to bring their birthday cards and clip them onto a clothesline so that everyone can see all the months. (Months do not need to be in order).

Day 2-45 minute lesson

1. Ask students to describe what we can find out by looking at our display.  Ask questions such as:

"Who has a birthday is in October?"

"What is the date of  Jordan's birthday?"

"Who are the two students that have birthdays in the same month?"

2. As students become more familiar with the display, ask them to think of other questions that could be answered by looking at the display.

3. Ask students how we could organize our data so that we could tell whose birthday comes next in the school year.

4. Have a discussion about the order to put the months in, how many months there are, and which months are missing.

5. Rearrange the birthday display.  Discuss how many months there are and, if any are missing, what those are, and how to indicate the missing months on the display.

6. After the months are placed in the correct order, ask students how they can tell which birthday comes next within each month.

7. Have students reorder the display and ask them to explain how they know the order of the numbers.