The purpose of this activity is for students to use data presented in scaled bar graphs to solve one-step “how many more?” and “how many fewer?” problems. In a previous lesson, students created scaled bar graphs to show data about favorite seasons. Answering questions about a familiar graph prepares students to answer questions about a new graph in the next activity. 

This activity provides an opportunity for formative assessment of students’ addition and subtraction methods. In grade 2, students were expected to fluently add and subtract within 100.

• “What is this problem about?”
• “How would you describe two categories in the graph using the phrase, ‘more than’ or ‘fewer than’?”

• Have students share responses to the last 2 questions.
• “How are these questions the same? How are they different?” (They both ask about the difference between 2 categories. The first question uses “more”, and the second question uses “fewer.”)
• As students share, use this as an opportunity to highlight addition and subtraction strategies in which students use tens and ones.

The purpose of this activity is for students to use data presented in scaled bar graphs to solve one-step “how many more?” and “how many fewer?” problems. The graph in the previous activity was familiar to students since they had created it in a previous lesson, but the graph used in this activity is new to students. Because the graph has a scale of 10, students need to estimate values that do not show an exact multiple of 10. As a result, answers may vary slightly. Accept all answers that align to reasonable estimates.

• “How did you start solving this problem?”
• “How could you use the information from the graph to solve the problem?”

• Invite students to share responses for the first three problems. Be sure to share a variety of reasonable estimates for the values in each category to make sure students know it’s okay if they don’t know the exact value for sure.
• Ask 2–3 groups to share a question they wrote and ask the whole class to answer it. As students share, use this as an opportunity to highlight addition and subtraction strategies in which students use tens and ones.