Chapter 5: Counting the Treasure
The Trend Line Coloring Page
"Going up or going down?"
Curious Bunny sliding down a line on a graph like a slide.
About this page
Leave it to Curious Bunny to find the playground hiding inside a graph. On page 67, the trend line becomes a slide, and the ride itself teaches the lesson: lines on graphs go up or down, and which way they lean tells a story. More cookies eaten each day, line goes up. Less daylight each evening, line goes down. This kind of direction-spotting is a friendly first step into the pattern work at the center of Chapter 5, Counting the Treasure. Children who can say it is going up are already reading data, no numbers required yet.
The research skill
Reading the direction of a trend is the skill here, and the picture answers its own question. The bunny rides a line that climbs from the bottom left toward an arrowhead at the top right, so this trend is going up. Look closely and you will spot a small zigzag partway along, yet the overall direction still rises. Researchers learn to see the big pattern without being distracted by one little bump. That habit is central to Chapter 5, and it returns whenever children graph growth, temperature, or reading minutes.
Try it at home
Make a trend line from something that really changes. Stack blocks one at a time, and after each new block, have your child hold a strip of paper against the tower and mark its height. Do this for six or seven blocks. On another sheet, draw one dot per turn, moving a little to the right each time and up to match that turn's mark. Connect the dots from left to right. Which way does your line go? Did knocking the tower over at any point add a dip?
Talk about it while you color
- Is Curious Bunny sliding up or down, and how can you tell?
- What is something that keeps getting bigger as you grow?
- If your happiness today were a slide, would it be going up or down right now?