Primary Standards:
MAFS.1.MD.3.4 Organize, represent, and interpret data with up to three categories; ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many in each category, and how many more or how many less are in one category than in another.
Connecting Standards:
MAFS.1.OA.1.1 Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.
Content Knowledge:
In first grade students build upon student experiences and knowledge of sorting and categorizing. Students continue to build upon these skills at organizing by using a chart or table to record data. Students may sort and categorize by color, theme, shape, length, or number of items in a group.
As students’ sort and categorize, they display their data in charts. Adding a title to charts and labeling the items represented help our students see how these charts represent their thinking about the sorting. Displaying data in both vertical and horizontal ways helps students see that the orientation of these charts doesn’t matter.
Data experiences should shift from categorizing real objects, to categorizing data based on answers to interesting survey questions. Survey questions help students to gather real-life data and make the data meaningful to them. (e.g. Would you rather have a cat, dog, or snake as a pet?) When students are interested in the data, they love to talk about it, and can connect their questions and conversations to other math skills. (e.g., Which answer has more responses? How many students prefer dogs? Why do you think so few of use chose cats?)
Discussions about differing strategies to record data help students make sense of different representations. Some students may use sticky notes, where another uses tally marks, and a third uses numbers to show the totals. Comparing these various displays allow students to develop a deeper understanding of the math representations.
GCG 1 – Learning Goal: As a Mathematician, I will be able to Collect and Represent Data on a Chart
- Step 1: Sort objects into categories (up to 3)
- Step 2: Count and compare objects in categories
- Step 3: Create a table or chart to collect, organize and represent data
GCG 2 – Learning Goal: As a Mathematician, I will be able to Interpret Data