DATA, DATA, DATA

For this post, I decided to take a look at collecting data, which is a first-grade standard. In the first-grade room I worked in last year, we would have morning meeting every day with a morning message where students got to practice filling in snap words and letters they knew and hear about their schedule for the day. At the bottom of the morning message, we would take a poll related to an upcoming holiday, the season/weather, or fun "national day of" polls. For example, on National Donut Day, we took a poll of the students favorite flavor of donut- glazed, chocolate, or powdered. We would then discuss the results in terms of comparison. It started out as a s l o w moving process, but eventually they got the hang of it and thought it was so fun! We would analyze things such as which had the most votes, which had the least votes, and eventually worked up to things like how many more people chose one over another?

While this may seem like a simple activity, it really set them up to understand data collection and analysis, which are standards all the way up through high school and are real-life skills. Students got a chance to practice familiarizing themselves with tally marks, addition, subtraction, and grouping. We often would create an equation out of the data, such as HOW MANY PEOPLE CHOSE EITHER GLAZED OR CHOCOLATE? or HOW MANY MORE STUDENTS CHOSE CHOCOLATE THAN CHOSE POWDERED? Students became comfortable recognizing that this is asking them to add together the number of students who chose glazed AND the number of students who chose chocolate, or to subtract the number who chose powdered from the number who chose chocolate. It was such a valuable tool that I can't wait to incorporate into my own classroom someday!

There are tons of fun worksheets out there of varying difficulty that allow students to practice collecting, analyzing, and using data. I think a fun way to make it hands on is to create some worksheets or activities of your own that allow students to collect data in the classroom, at home, or even throughout the school! We did a sort of "scavenger hunt" activity where students had to tally how many chairs, tables, bean bags, and computers there were in the classroom and they were so excited and engaged. We also sent home a worksheet that had students collect data at home with a parent/guardian about specific household items, number of people in their home, and even number of pets! My students loved it so much that I actually made a knockoff version and used it with the kids I babysat who wanted "homework" because they saw their older sibling get tons of it. Nothing excites young kids more than getting to explore and it's a nice way to get moving while still meeting lesson standards 😊