While walking or driving to and fro with your children, point out the different colors of flowers that are blooming in spring. In Texas this begins in late February and continues through early May. We like to make a chart to practice beginning level graphing. The same chart can be used by an older child to figure mean, median, and mode statistics.
Each child keeps the chart on a clipboard in the car during the season of observation (this can be done in fall too).
To make a chart we make a table and color a circle at the top of each column. Then as we see those colors, tick marks are made in the column below. I like to have the children mark the columns in ROY G. BIV rainbow order out of habit and to reinforce that mnemonic aid. So column headings with colored pencils are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo (optional), and purple. We also add a column for black and brown.
After about a month of observing we add all the tick marks to notice which colors were most common. Spring colors in Central Texas tend to be yellow, peach (orange), green, blue, lavender (purple).
Enjoy your kids,
Kari
