Would you rather...

Recently, we had "survey day" in first grade!  This is one of my favorite days in our math curriculum.  Both the first and second grade students have been learning about collecting and representing information from surveys as part of our data analysis units.

In the morning, a small team of second graders visited our classroom to survey the first graders.  They were collecting data about how many teeth each first grader had lost (their answers varied from 0 to 9).   I love that the second grade survey day corresponded with ours because it makes the progression of learning very evident.  My kiddos were so excited to find out that they would get to survey other classes when they get to second grade (if they become excellent surveyors!)

In the meantime, they developed questions to ask their own classmates.  The kiddos worked in partnerships to think of a "Would you rather" question. A few of their questions were:

• Would you rather read mystery books or fairy tales?
• Would you rather watch a movie inside or play outside?
• Would you rather eat strawberries or a banana?

After they had their question, each partnership had to plan out which parter would ask the question and which partner would record the responses.  They also needed to determine how they would record the responses.  I made sure that they had class lists, colored cubes, blank paper, and colored pencils available to choose from.  Many of the kids used the class list to make sure they got around to everyone in the class.  Each partnership got a chance to go around the room and asked their question (while the other kids worked on story problems in their math books).  

After the groups finished their data collection, they made representations of their information using pictures, tally marks, cube towers, or names.  They also answered questions about how many total students answered their question, which response received more responses, and what information was surprising or interesting from their survey.   This is such a fun lesson because the kiddos are very invested in accurately collecting their data and making representations. They also get to practice some important partner skills as they negotiate and compromise about the question they want to ask and how to divide up duties.  

Now the kiddos are interested in turning everything into a survey... oh boy.