Graphing Linear Functions in 6th Grade Math

Graphing Functions Practice with Footloose Task Cards (free download) 

This Graphing Linear Functions post is from my old blog, written in May, 2015, but updated here:-)

Graphing functions hit us in May of this school year. Our state testing had wrapped up and we started working with function tables and graphing function equations, on a pretty basic level.

This post is my summary of how I approached practicing the basic idea of graphing linear functions with my 6th grade math students:-) Included is a description of the task card activity I used, which you can download for free at the end of the post.

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Our Graphing Functions Practice

As my 6th grade math students started graphing functions, we used some practice from our textbook, and the students created functions for each other to graph, but I felt that it just wasn't enough practice.

I couldn't find any functions activities to suit my needs "exactly," so I decided to make a shorter Footloose task card activity to give the students some extra practice (and some movement that Footloose provides...movement helps keep the students engaged...especially in May!).

I created 15 Footloose task cards for graphing functions. The cards all have the same directions ("Choose x-values to complete a function table for:_____" and "Graph the function."), but they have different functions to graph.

For example, Card 1 says:
1) Choose x-values to complete a function table for: y = x + 5 
2)Graph the function.

The answer grid for this graphing functions activity is actually two pages:

• Answer grid 1 is for students to choose x-values and find ordered pairs by completing a table.
• Answer grid 2 has small coordinate planes, for students to graph the functions. *note: The coordinate planes on the graphing page are definitely small, and I was a little worried they might be too small, but overall, the students had no trouble with the tiny grids. I had one student (out of 125 students) who asked if he could use bigger graph paper, which was fine. The rest of the students did well with the grids.

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Graphing Functions Task Cards Extra Instructions

Before students began choosing x-values for their tables, we discussed the fact that the axes on the coordinate planes only go to 10, in both the positive and negative directions.
Knowing this, they needed to be careful to choose x-values that would result in y-values that were less than 10.

​As the students worked, it was interesting to see which students purposely chose negative x-values, to challenge themselves to work with negative numbers (we hadn't officially studied operations with negative integers), while others stayed with the comfortable positives.

The students really enjoyed this one! 
​Feel free to download and use it with your students:-)

Download the Footloose Task Cards!

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