Fair Fun This problem relates to gathering and analyzing data.

My group of K-1st graders where asked what their favorite part of the Alaska State Fair was. As a group, we listed all the answers out. Here are the childrens answers: Watching the shows (Lumber Jack, Equestrian riding, BMX, Pirate (2) Farm animals (including the petting zoo) (4) Rides (7) Eating different food (6) Buying souvenirs (1) Concerts (1) Fair hair (3) Face painting (2) Giant produce (2) Cheerleaders (1)

After the children created their list of favorites, we graphed them. The children had to mark on a chart (graph) their favorite. This is what the graph looked like. Favorite thing to do at the Alaska State Fair 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

x x Shows

x x x x Farm animals

x x x x x x x Rides

x x x x x x Food

x x x x x Souvenirs Concerts Fair hair Favorite thing

x x x x x Face Produce Cheerleaders painting

The top 3 favorites were rides, farm animals and eating food. Once the children graphed their favorites, the next day we took another vote and voted on our top 2 and graphed them again. Rides and eating food were the top 2. The children voted and graphed the top two. Rides won as the favorite thing to do at the Alaska State Fair. Here is the graph to show that. 19 students picked the rides as their favorite and 10 picked food as their favorite. Here is the new graph.

29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

x X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X Rides

x X X X X X X X X X Eating Food Our really favorite thing to do at the Alaska State Fair

After we finished making our handmade graphs, we went to http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids and created a bar graph and a pie graph. The students enjoyed making it by hand and then comparing it to the computer to see how well they did.