Preschool math: graphing

Once a certain little girl got her naps back in order (and we all became miraculously happier...), Mini Me and I had more time again to do our fun "best friend" activities.  We hadn't done much math for awhile so we set to work with some preliminary graphs.

I used scratch paper to make a simple table.  For the first one, we used old Easter stamps.  I wrote the number and the item at the bottom of the column, such as "5 ducks".  On the side of the paper I wrote some simple "how many" questions for Mini Me to answer.

First, we looked at each stamp and named the picture.  This helped him be able to recognize the words at the bottom of the columns.  He had a lot of fun graphing and did really well recognizing the words and counting the correct number of items.

He worked hard to answer the "how many" questions, especially when I asked about some items that he had stamped in two different columns.  He had to do some continuation counting.

He did great!  I was especially proud of how he wrote his numbers right on the lines. 

For our second graph, we used some animal, number, and letter stickers.  He again had to look at the number and item at the bottom of the column, choose the correct sticker, and place the correct number of items (stickers) in the column.

My questions on the right were: Which has the most?  Which has the least?  (I knew they had been working on these concepts at preschool).  This is how he answered:

I imagined us working together to write the word to name the sticker in the column that had the most.  He instead wrote the number of the item in the most column.  Smart!  Notice he also first had to draw the answer line to write on.  And, at my insistence so I could see him write a word other than his name, he did write "cat". 

Both he and I enjoyed graphing (all 40 minutes of it!) and we are going to do it again soon.