Graphing Teaching Resources

Teach graphing this school year with printable worksheets, fun graphing activities and games, task cards and more teacher-created resources for elementary school math!

This collection of editable teacher-created resources is aligned with the Common Core curriculum. It has been carefully reviewed by the expert teachers on the Teach Starter team to ensure every single digital or printable resource is ready to use in the classroom. That means you can save hours on lesson planning with activities ready to print or use digitally!

Are you looking to learn more about teaching students to use graphs, or just on the hunt for fresh ideas and activities to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a look graphing on this level and some key vocabulary!

What Is Graphing? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Graphing starts as early as kindergarten or first grade in many schools around the country with simple pictographs. But how do you explain what graphing is to the youngest students? This kid-friendly definition may help.

Graphing is a way to show information using pictures and symbols. It's sort of like drawing a picture that helps you understand numbers and facts.

For example, we could use graphs to show how many kids in our class like different colors or how many toys in the toy bin are cars.

Graphing Vocabulary for Elementary Teachers

Looking for a guide to some of the graphing vocabulary your students will encounter — and you will have to define? Here's a comprehensive look, along with some simple definitions!

• Data —Information that is collected and analyzed
• Axis — The horizontal and vertical lines that make up a graph.
  • X-axis — The horizontal axis on a graph
  • Y-axis — The vertical axis on a graph
• Bar — A rectangular shape we use to represent data on a bar graph
• Scale — The units used to measure data on a graph
• Pictogram/pictograph — A graph that uses pictures to represent data
• Legend/key — A chart that explains the symbols used on a graph (students may recognize this from their map skills lessons)
• Line of best fit — A straight line  on a graph that represents the overall trend in a set of data
• Line plot — A graph that shows the frequency of data values on a number line
• Tally — A mark used to represent data on a tally chart
• Pie chart — A graph that shows the proportion of each data value to the whole, represented as a circle that looks like a pie
• Line graph — A graph that shows the relationship between two variables using a line
• Data point — An individual value on a graph