Harry Potter Lesson Plans

Lesson 1

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Lesson 3

Lesson 4

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

Lesson 7

Lesson 8

Lesson 9

Lesson 10

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Lesson 8: Reading and Interpreting Charts and Graphs

 

Objective:The student will read and interpret graphs and charts and be able to answer comparison questions, as well as addition and subtraction questions, from the information available on the graphs and charts.

Anticipatory Set: Being able to interpret graphical information is important to learning basic concepts of statistics and probability. By starting to interpret information this way, the students will eventually be able to systematically collect, organize, discuss, and describe data.

Pre-skill:

Materials: computer (1 per student if available) w/ access to the Microsoft program Excel, copy of completed graphs from Excel worksheet per student (also on board, see attached), copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (for reference)

Delivering Instruction/Model and Lead: Procedures:

Guided Practice/Lead and Test:

  • The teacher will then write several questions on the board: Which house has the most in it?; Which house has the least in it?; Which house has more than Hufflepuff but less than Slytherin? How many more people does Gryffindor have than Ravenclaw? How many people do Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff have together?
  • The teacher will answer the first several questions with the students and show them how to obtain the answers based upon the comparison strategies they’ve learned.
  • The teacher will assist the students with the activity and also go around to guide them with their comparisons.

    • Independent Practice:

    • The students will continue to do the activity in groups, perhaps even in their "house" at first and then switching into mixed up groups with representatives from the different "houses". This is just to make it more interesting.
    • The teacher will help the groups to answer comparison questions. (help fades, however)
    • The teacher will monitor that the students write down their work in a notebook so as to refer back to it later. If more convenient, the class or perhaps individual groups, can word process there answers. If word processing is done, the teacher will check that the students save their work.

    Formative Evaluation: The teacher will assess the completed questions for accuracy and offer helpful hints and guidelines to any problem areas. After taking up the students’ answers to the questions, the teacher will present the same graph and chart and ask the students the same kinds of

    questions for review. This type of lesson will be reviewed and relived later and will include a more formal assessment when the students have reached mastery.

    Extension Activity and/or Extended Lesson: The students will divide back up into their assorted houses. Each house will get a bag of Skittles (an analogy to Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans). The students will work in their houses to separate the Skittles into color groups. Each group will inform the teacher as to what their divisions of Skittle colors are and he/she will fill in another spreadsheet so that, in the end, each house will have their own graph of Skittle colors. The class will then compare Skittle colors across the different houses using the different graphs.

    Accommodations: All text will be read aloud as well as presented visually. Additionally, all directions will be presented in a written form as well as an oral form. The students who have problems with writing will be able to use the word processor.

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    ©2001 University of South Carolina Board of Trustees

    URL:    http://www.ed.sc.edu/caw/bio.html
    Maintained by Dr. Cheryl A. Wissick,  Associate Professor
    Department of Educational Psychology, College of Education.

    Last updated: October, 2001