7 Fun Line Plots Practice Activities
If you work with 4th grade or 5th grade students, chance are you teach line plots. Line plots can be a fun topic to teach and learn, but traditional curriculums don’t usually have the line plots activities and practice students need to truly master this skill.
Here are seven fun line plots practice activities that 4th grade and 5th grade students love! They are easy to prep, offer practice in a variety of formats, and are engaging for students!
Math Task Card Mystery
A mystery scenario hooks kids into this interactive learning experience! This math task card mystery starts with an introduction to the ‘Golden Pizza Slice’ mystery scenario and gives students a list of possible solutions to the mystery.
Students work through the set of line plots practice task cards one by one. The answer they get on each line plot task card will eliminate one of the possible mystery solutions. Students cross off the eliminated solutions as they work their way through the cards.
Once all of the line plots task cards have been completed, there will be only one solution remaining.
If students have answered all of the line plots practice task cards correctly, they will have the correct solution to the case! If they made mistakes on any of the cards, they can go back and check where they made a mistake and work towards finding the solution.
Adding a mystery to traditional task cards keeps students engaged and motivated to complete the line plots practice activity.
CLICK HERE to learn more about the line plots task card mystery.
Post It Line Plots
Create moveable and visual line plots using post its.
There are several ways you can use post its to make line plots practice an engaging activity.
- Hide post its with data points on them around the room. Students find the post its and organize them on a large line plot drawn on the board or on chart paper.
- Hand out post its to each student. Ask a question and give students several answer categories to choose from. Students write their answer on their post it and then add their post it to the large line plot on the board or chart paper.
- Create a line plot with post its and use the moveable sticky notes to practice how data landmarks would chance if data points were altered. You can also use this method to practice redistribution of data on line plots.
Digital Practice
Digital line plots practice activities give students a chance to use technology and practice working with line plots questions in a similar format as what they will see on tests.
Google Forms are a great way to give students the digital line plots practice they need.
10 question line plots practice activities on Google Forms are short enough to keep students focused and engaged, but also long enough to give teachers a good overview of how each student and the class as a whole is doing with specific line plots skills.
Use the summary at the end of each line plots google form to see which questions students missed most, how many students got a certain number correct, which question everyone got correct, and if there are specific skills you need to re-teach.
CLICK HERE to get a ready-to-use set of 4 Google Forms line plots practice activities (with corresponding printable activities).
Cereal Line Plots
Grab a box of cereal that has multiple colors or multiple shapes. Fruit Loops or Lucky Charms work great!
Give each student or pair of students a small baggie of the cereal. Have them create a line plot using the cereal as the data points on the line plot.
You can compare student line plots to see if the cereal colors/shapes were evenly distributed, or if some students had large differences in their results.
Another fun way to practice line plots with food is to use candy. Skittles, gumballs, and jelly beans all make good line plot manipulatives!
Board Games
Kids love to play games! Incorporate line plots practice questions into a board game format.
Use a set of line plot task cards as questions. Each time a student gets a correct answer, they get to move a specified number of spaces, or roll a die to determine how far to move.
If they get the answer incorrect, their turn ends.
You can add a set of line plots questions to any board game you may have.
The line plots board game shown in the picture below uses question cards and several different line plots cards to play the game. The back of each question card lets the student know how many spaces to move if they get the answer correct.
If you teach 4th grade or 5th grade, I have created board games for every math standard. Having the same format for all of your math games really saves time with giving directions and explaining how to play. Students learn the rules once, and it is the same format for all the games.
Student Line Plot
This line plot practice activity works best in an open space like a hallway, gym, or playground, but you can also make it work in the classroom.
Ask students a question. Along a line on the floor, put down pieces of paper or white boards that have several answer choices on them.
Students physically move themselves to the section of the line plot that matches their answer.
You can do this activity several times with different questions. Students get the opportunity to get up and move around and see a line plot being created around them.
Line Plot Worksheets
Sometimes, students need extra pencil and paper line plots practice in the form of worksheets.
When choosing line plot practice worksheets, try to find ones that present the material in a variety of formats, and that offers questions at a variety of levels.
Give students worksheets where they need to create line plots from a set of data, and practice where they analyze line plots already created.
I created a set of line plots practice worksheets that includes line plots with fractions. This set of 7 line plots activity pages includes practice for creating and analyzing whole number line plots, creating and analyzing line plots with fractions, redistribution of data on line plots, a line plots test prep multiple choice page, and a fun color by number activity.
CLICK HERE to go to the LINE PLOTS PRACTICE worksheets.
I hope this blog post gave you some new ideas for line plots practice activities to add to your upcoming line plots unit.
Having a variety of ways to practice this important skill helps students at different levels and with different learning styles master line plots with whole numbers and fractions!
