Planning tool

Students can:

• pose and ask simple questions and collect responses (such as, do you like running games? Yes or No)
• sort and classify objects into categories and describe how they have been organised (for example, by colour, shape or function)
• display data using real objects or drawings (for example, sort square tiles according to colour and create a simple representation).

Some students may:

• not have established one-to-one correspondence, therefore are not able to use counting accurately in data contexts. Use data activities as playful contexts to re-emphasise strategies such as ‘point and count’ to support the development of counting
• focus on the overall size of objects in a group when asked ‘how many’ in each category, for example, they count 3 horses and 6 cats, and say there are more horses. To address this, regularly present two groups of vastly different-sized objects (for example, 3 trucks and 5 cars) and be explicit about the focus on number rather than size
• say that one group has more than another, but is unable to say how many more. To address this, provide repeated opportunities for students to compare small quantities using physical objects.

The Learning from home activities are designed to be used flexibly by teachers, parents and carers, as well as the students themselves. They can be used in a number of ways including to consolidate and extend learning done at school or for home schooling.

Learning intention

• We are learning to collect data and make simple conclusions about the information (data) collected.

Why are we learning about this?

• Data is all around us! We use data every day to make decisions.

What to do

Have fun with surveys. For instance:

1. Pose a ‘yes/no’ question you’d like to ask family and/or friends. Examples might include:

• Do you like reading funny books?
• Do you like broccoli?
• Have you ever tried doing a handstand?

2. Collect responses by getting respondents to form a line depending upon their answer.

3. Use the survey data to make observations, for example, 3 people in our family like broccoli and 1 person does not.

4. Pose questions that spark casual data investigations in everyday contexts. For instance:

• Animals in the park, for example, 3 ducks and 2 dogs. Are there more dogs than ducks? How do you know?
• Animals in a storybook, for example, when reading The Waterhole by Graeme Base, explore questions such as, ‘What different animals did you see?’ and ‘Were there more tigers or kangaroos?’
• Investigate the fruit bowl: I wonder if there are more apples or more bananas? How could we find out?
• Family members. What are the different categories that make up our family? How many in each category? Category examples might include adults, children, pets. How else could we sort ourselves? Hair colour: brown hair, Black hair. What we do every day: people who go to work, people who work at home, people who go to school.

5. Explore collections of objects. For instance:

• Collect items that can be sorted into categories (for example, bottle caps of different colours, items from nature such as gumnuts and leaves).
• Sort items into categories and name each category (for example, 'These are gumnuts, these are pebbles.').
• Think about possible questions to explore about collections (asking questions such as, ‘Are there more green bottle caps or blue bottle caps?’).
• Organise the objects in ways that will help you answer the questions you’ve posed (for example, you might lay or stack categories alongside each other).

Success criteria

I can:

• sort items into categories according to how they are different (for example, sort blocks by colour: red blocks together and blue blocks together; types of pets: cats together and dogs together; types of fruit: apples together and bananas together)
• identify which group has more, for example, there are more cats than dogs
• pose and ask survey questions with ‘yes/no’ answers to explore a topic (for example, dietary questions such as, ‘Do you eat bread? Yes or No’).