sh vignette on grpahing

In September, we were discussing the composition of our class when I raised the question regarding whether the children thought there were more boys in the class or more girls. I asked the children to suggest ways that might help us figure out the answer. Some children wanted to guess...(I noticed that boys tended to guess (or hope) more boys, and that some girls similarly guessed, or hoped, more girls.) Some children started counting the children, but quickly confused themselves as the class was not sorted into two groups yet. As it did not seem to be forthcoming, I suggested that we put all the boys in one group and all the girls in another. I quietly asked the girls to spread themselves farther apart. I also asked children if they could now figure out which was more. Guesses came in both answers but more thought girls were in greater number. I challenged all children to prove which was more. When we finally lined up the boys and then lined up the girls, we tried to determine which line was longer. I again wanted to show that we could make the boys appear to have more by stretching their line, or similarly increase the space to make the girls line appear longer. I asked them to think again how we could figure this out for sure.

The next day, we took out a large people graph (3 feet x 20 feet of back plastic ruled off in blocks 1 foot by 1 foot square). We lined up the boys in one row and the girls in another and could quickly see that one line was longer. We felt confident that we had figured out which group was more.

I mentioned that we could also have counted each group.

We followed up the large sized people graph with a smaller wall sized model that we could refer to in subsequent days (especially when an absentee child returned)...did that change the results? yes!