The purpose of this lesson is for students to collect categorical data about the class, organize it, and represent it in a way others can understand.

In previous lessons, students sorted objects. They created visual representations of the number of objects in each category using shapes, tally marks, numbers, or other methods. In this lesson, students answer a survey question and represent different responses with different colored cubes. Connecting cubes are a concrete way to represent each answer in a survey. Students’ previous work with cubes may lead them to suggest making towers by color to organize the cubes. This concept will support students as they make their own representations in the next activity. Students make true statements based on the data after it is represented visually.

As the class builds a math community, it is helpful to learn about one another’s likes and dislikes. When choosing a survey question to ask, consider asking students about favorites in the following subjects.

• Animal/pet
• Color
• Subject in school
• Special area in school (Art, Music, etc.)
• Field trip destination
• Indoor activity
• Recess activity
• Sport
• Fruit
• Snack

Choose a question and come up with three possible responses to the question that students can choose from when taking the survey. Consider having students help choose the question and responses.