Author: Bennett Downes, Church Hill Elementary School

Date: 1994

Subject(s):

• Mathematics/Process Skills

Grade Level(s): 1, 2

Overview: This activity can be used to teach observing, classifying, graphing, and interpreting data. It is designed for grades 1 and 2. The students will listen to the story The Elves and the Shoemaker and then do sorting and graphing activities.

Objective: As a result of this activity, the students will be able to classify shoes by various attributes such as color, style, material, etc. The data collected will displayed on a class bar graph. The students will be able to read and interpret the graph noting how many shoes for each attribute.

Materials:

• 1 copy of the story, The Elves and the Shoemaker
• 2-3 Hula Hoops
• chart paper
• markers

Procedures:

1. Read the story, The Elves and the Shoemaker

2. Have the students sit in a semi-circle on the floor and take off their shoes and place in front of where they are sitting.

3. Students should look at all the shoes in the classroom. ASK, "How could we group the shoes in our room"

4. List suggestions on board.

5. Choose one kind of grouping. (white\not white) (shoes\boots) etc.

6. Place two Hula Hoops on the floor. Make a tag to label each hoop. Note... you can overlap the hoop to show a venn diagram.

7. Ask students to place a shoe in the appropriate hoop.

8. The have students count the number of shoes in each hoop.

9. Using a piece of chart paper, record the number of shoes in each hoop on a prepared bar graph.

10. You may do more graphs for other attributes

Discussion:

Ask:

1. What kind of shoes does our class like to wear?

2. Do you think other rooms wear the same type of shoes?

3. How could we find out?

Extensions:

1. Do a shoe typing in another room. Compare/contrast data from different rooms.

2. Create another story about elves that make other kinds of clothing.

3. Draw a picture showing what this story was mainly about. (GLOBAL)

4. Compose a class letter thanking the elves.