NAME ______________________________ DATE _______________

FAMILY LETTER

Related Activities to Try at Home

Dear Family,

The activities below are related to the mathematics in the data unit, Generating and Describing Measurement Data. You can use the activities to enrich your child's mathematical learning experience.

Data in the Media We live in an information-rich society, and it is important for students to begin to experience the variety of ways that information is communicated and represented in the world. As you are reading the newspaper or a magazine, point out various graphs and charts to your child. Talk about how you make sense of the data, what they mean, and why you are interested in them. This is an opportunity for you to show your child how graphs communicate important information to you and your family.

Investigate a Topic You and your child may also be interested in investigating a problem that you have noticed in your community. You might start by defining the problem and devising a plan to collect data about it. As a next step, you could collect the data and then organize and represent the results. As you work, you might think about who is an appropriate audience for your findings.

For example, one household collected data about the number of cars that passed by their house at rush hour compared with other times in the day. They made a series of recommendations to improve traffic safety in their neighborhood and circulated the recommendations to their neighbors and to the police department.

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