Sorting and graphing are simply ways of classifying and representing information about a group or set. With young students, our goal is to help them see these representations as a way to understand the set.
We can answer questions about a group more easily if we sort and organize it according to the characteristics that interest us. Sorting is an important precursor to data analysis. In order to answer questions about a set, we need to organize it; once the set is organized, we can draw conclusions about it.
Big Ideas in Data Analysis
(Adapted from Big Ideas of Early Mathematics: What Teachers of Young Children Need to Know by Erikson Institute.)
The purpose of collecting data is to answer questions when the answers are not immediately obvious.
When we teach young children about data, the most important thing to teach is
WHY we do it—not for the sake of sorting and graphing, but to better understand a set of data and answer our questions about the set.Data must be represented in order to be interpreted; how data are gathered and organized depends on the question.
Again, if we sort or graph objects or information procedurally according to arbitrary categories, that doesn’t teach children much about the purpose of data analysis. Strengthen this big idea for your students by sorting a set in multiple ways to answer different questions about the set. Invite students to collect their own data to analyze with polls of family and friends.It is useful to compare parts of the data and to draw conclusions about the data as a whole.
This big idea is about the analysis, or critical thinking, of the data we observe. If the whole point of sorting and graphing data is to learn something new, we need to spend looking, thinking, and talking about the data with students.
Activity: Creatures in a Cage
(Adapted from The Young Child and Mathematics by Juanita Copley.)
This activity challenges students to consider multiple attributes of a given group—in this case, creatures! Introduce them briefly prior to sorting so your students are familiar with the creatures and less distracted by their novelty. Then, sort away!
Click HERE to download a template to make your own Creatures. (Tip: Print multiple sets on different colored paper or color them in to add color as an attribute.)
Note: These adorable creatures don’t necessarily have to be put in a cage. In your classroom, this activity can be “Creatures in a Cave,” “Creatures in a Cabin,” or “Creatures in a Corral.” Any enclosure works, so use your imagination.
(Tip: Use the blank creatures to let students add their own attributes and create their own set to sort!)
Getting Children Thinking about Data Analysis
(Adapted from The Young Child and Mathematics by Juanita Copley.)
It is imperative for us to model rich thinking and talking about math. Use the questions below to do your own think-alouds in whole-group instruction or to prompt critical thinking with smaller groups and individual students. These are great paired with the “Creatures in a Cage” activity or when looking at any kind of data set.
Additional Resources
In this video from Erikson Institute, see how a Pre-K classroom of English Language Learners sorts and organizes their sets of shoes. (This is a great example of introducing bar graphs with physical objects first.)
The activity “Creatures in a Cage” above was adapted from The Young Child and Mathematics by Juanita Copley.
See Literacy Connections next for ideas to mathematize these concepts with children’s literature.