As children enter school and their interests extend from their immediate surroundings to include other environments, they must learn how to keep track of multiple responses to their questions and those posed by others. Students also should begin to refine their questions to get the information they need. Organizing data into categories should begin with informal sorting experiences, such as helping to put away groceries. Students should learn through multiple experiences that how data are gathered and organized depends on the questions they are trying to answer. At other times, pictures of objects, counters, name cards, or tallies can be contributed by students, organized, and then displayed to indicate preferences.
Students can contribute counters to bowls to vote.
Methods used by students in different grades to investigate the number of pockets in their clothing provide an example of students' growth in data investigations during the period through grade 2. They could survey their classmates and gather data by listing names, asking how many pockets, and noting that number beside each name. As they planned, the students had to decide if trucks should be included. After the class had settled on common categories, different groups of students kept track of the data in different ways. One group put cubes in different cups that represented the different categories.