Classroom Hack: Think Outside the Box Plot

Learning is Love...and I love classroom hacks! During a recent trip to the dollar store, I picked up some great finds for Valentine's Day. I've been thinking about how to help students better understand box plots and interquartile range. I like students to explore various ways to make learning "sticky." Once I found a bag of foam heart-shaped stickers, I hoped I could create an activity that would make box plots sticky for students.

I always like to start off with a crazy question. For this lesson, I may ask students, "How can hearts help us learn about box plots?" At first glance, there is no obvious answer (one student did mention that we could display the data for heartbeats:. ;-)

100 Hearts for $1. What a deal!

For this activity, I used box plot task cards with various scenarios. They vary in difficulty, which allows for differentiation. In addition to task cards, students need 5 foam heart-shaped stickers, a sharpie or pen, and their interactive notebooks or pieces of paper for their box plot full of hearts. For an added touch, I used red yarn for the whiskers.

Students will use the task cards to determine the median, first and third quartiles, and the upper and lower extremes. They will create a number line with the appropriate scale and intervals. Next, they will write the labels of the five summaries on the hearts. Now, they can construct their box plot using the stickers and the string.

What's great about this activity is that it's quick and simple. Plus, kids will have a little bit of fun while learning about or review box plots. Win-win for $1 plus tax. We can all love that!!!