Circle Graphs using Grid Paper

Our last day with our roller coaster measurement.  Last week we spent time making schedules to show how our time was spent riding roller coasters and waiting in line.  Today we turned our data into a circle graph.

To begin, we assigned each roller coaster a color.  We found the number of minutes that we would ride a coaster and then using the assigned color, we would fill in that number of boxes of grid paper.  We did this for each of the five coasters making a strip 25 colored squares long to represent the number of minutes spent on the ride.

We did the same thing with the total number of minutes we would be standing in line for the coasters.  We determined that we would stand in line a total of 106 minutes to ride each of the rides one time.  We kept 106 of our grid squares white to represent this amount of time.  This equated to four strips of grids.

We cut each strip out (one colored, four white) and then taped them together into one long strip.  Once we had the strip, we taped the ends together forming a circle.  We laid the circle strip on a sheet of white construction paper and outlined the circle.  Then we created hash marks on the perimeter of the circle denoting where each of the colors began and ended.  Next we folded our paper in half to find the center point of the circle.  We connected the hash marks to the center point.  Finally we colored in each of the sections with the same colors we used on the strips.

To complete the graph, we gave it a title (How I Spent My Time at an Amusement Park).  We used the colored table as our key.  We noted that the colored portion of the graph was the time spent on the rides, while the white portion denoted the amount of time spent standing in line.

To finish off the day, I asked the kids to complete a 3-2-1:

• 3 things I have learned
• 2 things I have enjoyed
• 1 thing I think should be added

HOMEWORK:  Countdown 4.7