Feet come in all different sizes. Find out just how wide the range can be in your age range while exercising your graphing skills.

• 1.

  Read and enjoy books with a foot theme such as Teri Daniels’ "The Feet in the Gym" and Gary Soto’s "If the Shoe Fits." To find out more about footwear, read Charlotte and David Yue’s "Shoes: Their History in Words and Pictures."

• 2.

  What size are your shoes? Work in teams to survey children in your grade to gather data about the range of shoes sizes. Use personal dry-erase boards to gather information. Down the left side use Crayola Dry Erase Markers to write all the possible shoe sizes you might find. Each shoe size can be represented by a different color.

• 3.

  Ask each student the same question: "What is your shoe size?" If they don’t know, invite them to remove a shoe to look. Mark each person’s shoe size with a tally mark.

• 4.

  Turn your information into a bar graph on a large dry-erase board. Write the title of your bar graph at the top. Indicate the shoe sizes on the left side, drawing different colorful shoes with a size on each one. Across the bottom create a number line to indicate how many students had each shoe size.

• 5.

  Draw a different colored bar from each shoe across to meet the number of students with that shoe size. Now everyone can see at a glance the whole range of shoe sizes. Which shoe size is most common? How many have tiny feet? How many kids have "Big Foot" status?

Standards

• LA: Read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, in the grade level text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.
• LA: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• MATH: Represent and interpret data.
• VA: Know how the differences among visual characteristics and purposes of art in order to convey ideas.

Adaptations

• Prior to doing the grade level survey, students collaborate to compose questions for the survey. Students word process the questions agreed upon and provide copies for all members of the survey team.
• Encourage students to survey different grade levels, teachers, or residents of senior communities. Compare and contrast data collected at each grade level, children vs. adults, etc. Students write a brief summary of their analysis of the data.
• Working in small groups, students investigate the shoe industry. How do the sizes compare for males and females? How are shoe sizes determined? What materials are best suited for shoe manufacturing? What new technology is creating cutting-edge shoes for runners, basketball players, hikers, etc?