Students gather data from home about their family origins, display the data on class maps and picture graphs, and interpret the data to make conclusions about their class.
Where have we come from?
Read The Little Refugee by Ahn Do and Suzanne Do to the class. This is a beautiful book that is a great stimulus.
Students discuss their family origins with their families. There is a letter to families to help students gather the information and to stimulate discussions.
Conduct a whole class discussion where students share stories and information they have found out about their family heritage.
Use a world map to record where the families have originated. List the countries in order, from most families to fewest families.
Which continent have most of our families come from?
This data can also be recorded on a picture graph using the continents (i.e., North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia and Antarctica) as the categories.
Once all the data is collected and displayed, students make some interpretations.
Depending on the students' ages, you can either lead a discussion or challenge students to work in small groups to answer relevant questions. Create questions based on the data collected, the graphs created and discussions.
Some questions might be: Why do you think no families have come from Antarctica? Why do you think such a high number of families have origins in Asia?
You can download the Family origins: Teacher notes.
Australian Curriculum links
Year 1: Represent data with objects and drawings where one object or drawing represents one data value. Describe the displays. (ACMSP263)
Year 2: Identify a question of interest based on one categorical variable. Gather data relevant to the question. (ACMSP048)
Create displays of data using lists, table and picture graphs and interpret them. (ACMSP050)
