Mini erasers are one of my all-time favorite classroom manipulatives to use because they are fun, inexpensive, and can be used in a variety of learning experiences! Math is one of my go-to subjects for incorporating mini erasers and my students can't wait to see what theme I will pull out for our next activity! When I first saw these Pets Mini Erasers, I knew we had to have them! They are absolutely adorable and what kid doesn't love animals?! Add this pet themed graphing activity into your center rotation or have students work on it in partner groups during a math lesson. Be sure to download the free graphing printables here.
Using themes in your lessons is a great way to engage students, so I created a pet store theme for this graphing activity. You will want to print off the pet store graph and printables and set up a pet store area. I used the stuffed animals, dog bowl, and mat from the Melissa & Doug® Feeding & Grooming Pet Care Playset.
I printed out the Pet Store sign (that you can download for free HERE) and attached it to a folded piece of blue cardstock. I also put some of the Pet Mini Erasers into the dog bowl for the activity.
Students love getting to solve a problem, so I created a character named Anni (pronounced "ah-knee") that needs help from the class. You can read this letter from Anni to your students to get them excited to figure out how many pets are in the pet store! Download the letter from Anni for free HERE.
To help Anni solve her problem and figure out what pet to buy, students will take the Pet Mini Erasers out of the dog bowl and place them onto the graph. I find that my kids benefit from using these concrete manipulatives on the graph before they color as they are mastering the skill of graphing. (If your students are ready for it, they can skip laying out the erasers on the graph and instead just count each type and color the information on the graph.)
Students will then color in their results and analyze the data to determine which pet appeared the most in the store. You can collect their graph and tell them you will use it to report back to Anni about what pet she should buy! If you are using this activity as a whole class you can have multiple dog bowls with varying amounts of erasers and tell students that there are multiple pet stores in the area that they need help do inventory on the amount of animals at each store. Then, Anni can buy whichever animal is the most popular at all of the stores.
Using mini erasers for graphing is such a fun way for students to practice their math skills! If you want to use different themed mini eraser graphing activities throughout the year, be sure to check out and download the graphs for the Ocean Mini Erasers, Insect Mini Erasers, and Pineapple Mini Erasers.
