Collecting Data Teaching Resources

Teach students methods of collecting data, collection tools and how to organize this mathematical information with worksheets, activities, Google Slide templates and more teacher-created resources for your math class.

Aligned with both TEKS and the Common Core math curriculum, the teacher resources in this collection were designed to save teachers time on lesson planning with classroom-ready printables and digital activities that have been reviewed by expert teachers. Explore fun worksheets focused on real-world problems and interactive activities that help kids see the possibilities that open up when you can collect data to answer your burning questions.

New to teaching students about data collection or just looking for some handy tips and tricks? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!

What Is Data? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Whether you pronounce it day-ta or dah-ta, it's all around us and driving our modern world. But how do you explain just what data is to your young students? Try this data definition from our teacher team:

Data is information we collect to learn more information about a subject. Data can be numbers, but it can also be words or pictures. We use data to make smarter decisions about the world around us.

For example, let's say that you are planning a party, and you don't know if you should serve cupcakes or candy. You might collect data to help you decide.

In this case, you might ask each person who will attend the party which type of treat they prefer. Their answers represent data that you can then analyze to determine if more people prefer ice cream or more people prefer cupcakes.

What Is Data Collection? A Kid-Friendly Definition

As we have already noted, there is data everywhere in the world, but in order to use that data, we first have to collect it!

What does that actually mean? Here's a way to explain what data collection is to your students:

Data collection is the process of gathering information about a particular thing. We can do this in many different ways, such as asking questions, making observations or conducting experiments.

It's important to record the data we collect so that it can be analyzed later to help us make our decisions.

What Are Tally Marks?

One more definition that's sure to come in handy when you're teaching students how to collect data is an explanation of tally marks!

Sometimes called hash marks, tally marks are short lines that can be used to record data. This useful tool for collecting data gives us an easy way to count something.

For example, if we are gathering data about how many people prefer cupcakes to ice cream, we can write down one short line or tally mark on a piece of paper each time someone says their answer is cupcakes. When we are done asking everyone, we can count up how many tally marks there are to find out the total number of people who prefer cupcakes.

Fun Data Collection Activities to Add to Your Lesson Plans

This collection of resources is filled with fun activities that can help students learn how to gather data and how to process it. But we didn't stop there! Here are some more fun data collection activities from our teacher team:

1. Conduct a Reading Data Challenge

If you're issuing a reading challenge for Read Across America Week or Library Lovers' Month, layer on a data collection element. Students can write down how many books they read each week, including the genre.

At the end of the month, challenge students to use the data they have collected to determine any of the following:

• Which week involved reading the most books?
• Which week involved reading the most books?
• Which genre of book did they read most?
• Which genre did they read the least?

To extend the activity, students can collect more detailed data during their challenge, such as the number of pages read each day or the total number of pages in each book they completed.

2. Set Up a Pen Pal Program

Partner with a teacher at a school in another state (or another country!) for a pen pal program, and add a data element.

Students can spend the year recording how many letters they send and how many they receive on a shared chart on the wall of the classroom. At the end of the year, all of that data can be tallied up! You can also brainstorm specific questions as a class that your students can ask their pen pals.

Students should record their own answers to the questions and then gather the answers of their pen pals. All of the collected data can be compiled and analyzed for comparison to find out if there are more similarities or differences between the two classes!