Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v5 - Grade 1

Lesson Video

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Performance objectives

• This lesson introduces Grade 1 learners to the foundational concepts of data handling, seamlessly integrated with essential revision of counting and number recognition. Data handling is the skill of collecting, sorting, and showing information. For a young South African learner, this is a skill they use every day without even realising it! When they help pack away groceries, sorting the fruit from the vegetables, or when they arrange their toy cars by colour, they are handling data. This topic empowers learners to see mathematics in their world, from the patterns on shweshwe fabric to the different types of taxis on the road. By learning to sort and represent information in a simple graph, they are building the first steps towards critical thinking, problem-solving, and making sense of the world around them.
• By the end of this lesson, learners will be able to:
• Sort a collection of everyday objects using a single attribute (e.g., colour, shape, or size).
• Represent sorted data by creating a simple pictograph where one picture represents one object.
• Answer simple questions about the data presented in a pictograph (e.g., 'how many?', 'which has the most?', 'which has the least?').

Lesson summary

This lesson introduces Grade 1 learners to the foundational concepts of data handling, seamlessly integrated with essential revision of counting and number recognition. Data handling is the skill of collecting, sorting, and showing information. For a young South African learner, this is a skill they use every day without even realising it! When they help pack away groceries, sorting the fruit from the vegetables, or when they arrange their toy cars by colour, they are handling data. This topic empowers learners to see mathematics in their world, from the patterns on shweshwe fabric to the different types of taxis on the road.

Lesson notes

What is Sorting? Sorting, or classifying, means putting things into groups based on something they have in common. We can call this common thing a 'rule' or an 'attribute'.

Attribute: An attribute is a characteristic of an object, like its colour, its shape, or its size.

Colour: Red, blue, yellow, green.

Shape: Circle, square, triangle.

Size: Big, small.

Example 1: Sorting by Colour Imagine you have a bag of beads from a local market. The bag has 5 red beads, 3 blue beads, and 6 yellow beads. How do we sort them? We make a group for each colour.

Step 1: Make a pile for all the red beads.

Step 2: Make another pile for all the blue beads.

Step 3: Make a third pile for all the yellow beads. Now you have three groups. You have sorted the data! The 'data' here is the information about the beads. What is a Pictograph? A pictograph is a special drawing that helps us see our sorted information easily. 'Picto' means picture, and 'graph' means chart. So, it's a picture chart! In Grade 1, we use simple pictographs where one picture stands for one object.

Example 2: Making a Pictograph for our Beads Let's use the beads we just sorted: 5 red, 3 blue, and 6 yellow.

Step 1: Get Ready. You need a piece of paper and a crayon or pencil. Draw lines to make columns for each group.

Step 2: Label the Groups. Write the name of each group at the bottom of a column. We will have columns for 'Red', 'Blue', and 'Yellow'.

Step 3: Draw the Pictures. In the 'Red' column, draw 5 circles (or beads) because we have 5 red beads. In the 'Blue' column, draw 3 circles because we have 3 blue beads. In the 'Yellow' column, draw 6 circles because we have 6 yellow beads.

Your pictograph will look like this: | | | | | :-------: | :-------: | :-------: | | O | | O | | O | | O | | O | O | O | | O | O | O | | O | O | O | | Red | Blue | Yellow | | (5) | (3) | (6) | Reading the Pictograph Now we can ask questions and find the answers just by looking at our pictograph.

Question: How many yellow beads are there?

Answer: We look at the 'Yellow' column and count the pictures. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

6. There are 6 yellow beads.

Question: Which colour has the most beads?

Answer: We look for the tallest column. The 'Yellow' column is the tallest. So, yellow has the most.

Question: Which colour has the least beads?

Answer: We look for the shortest column. The 'Blue' column is the shortest. So, blue has the least. Guided Practice (With Solutions)

Question 1: Sorting Animals Look at these animals from South Africa: Lion, Zebra, Elephant, Fish Eagle, Shark.

Sort them into two groups: 'Animals that live on land' and 'Animals that live in water'.

Solution 1: Method: We look at each animal and think about where it lives.

Lion: Lives on land.

Zebra: Lives on land.

Elephant: Lives on land.

Fish Eagle: Lives near water but is a land/air animal for this sorting rule.

Shark: Lives in water.

Answer: Group 1: Animals that live on land: Lion, Zebra, Elephant, Fish Eagle.

Group 2: Animals that live in water: Shark.

Question 2: Making a Fruit Pictograph Zandi went to the market and bought 4 bananas, 6 apples, and 3 oranges. Create a pictograph to show the fruit she bought.

Solution 2: Method: We need three columns for our three types of fruit. We will label them 'Bananas', 'Apples', and 'Oranges'. Then we draw the correct number of fruits in each column.

Answer: Zandi's Fruit | | | | | :-------: | :-------: | :-------: | | | O | | | | O | | | O | O | | | O | O | O | | O | O | O | | O | O | O | |Bananas| Apples | Oranges | | (4) | (6) | (3) | Question 3: Reading a Weather Pictograph Teacher Nomsa made a pictograph to show the weather for one week. Weather This Week | | | | | :-------: | :-------: | :-------: | | ☀️ | | | | ☀️ | ☁️ | 💧 | | ☀️ | ☁️ | 💧 | | ☀️ | ☁️ | | | Sunny | Cloudy | Rainy | Answer these questions: How many days were sunny? How many days were rainy? What was the most common weather this week?

Solution 3: Method: We find the answer by counting the pictures in each column of the graph.

Answer: We count the suns in the 'Sunny' column: 1, 2, 3,

4. There were 4 sunny days. We count the raindrops in the 'Rainy' column: 1,

2. There were 2 rainy days. We look for the tallest column. The 'Sunny' column is the tallest. The most common weather was sunny. Independent Practice (Questions Only)

You have a pile of classroom objects: 5 pencils, 7 crayons, and 4 books. Sort them into groups. Draw a pictograph to show the classroom objects from question

1. Look at your pictograph. Which group has the most objects? Look at your pictograph. Which group has the least objects? Count all the objects together. How many objects are there in total? Sipho has 3 dogs, 1 cat, and 5 chickens at his home. Draw a pictograph to show Sipho's animals. How many more chickens than cats does Sipho have? Find 10 leaves outside. Sort them by colour (e.g., green, brown, yellow). Ask five of your friends what their favourite colour is: red, blue, or yellow. Draw a pictograph to show their answers.