Lesson Notes By Weeks and Term v5 - Grade 2

Lesson Video

This page supports the lesson note with a companion video and a short classroom-ready summary.

For class groups and homework, share this lesson page so learners also get the summary, objectives, and full lesson context.

Performance objectives

• Collect and sort data using questions.
• Use tally marks to count.
• Draw a pictograph to show data.
• Answer questions using our data.
• Practice our number skills.

Lesson summary

This week, learners will embark on a journey as 'data detectives', exploring the fundamentals of data handling. Data handling is the process of gathering, recording, and presenting information in a way that is easy to understand. In a South African context, this is a vital skill.

Learners see data everywhere: in the weather report showing temperatures for Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg; in shop flyers showing which products are most popular; and even when voting for a class leader. By learning to handle data, learners develop critical thinking skills, enabling them to make sense of the world around them, ask questions, and make informed choices.

Lesson notes

What is Data? Data is a collection of information. Think of it as collecting clues to find an answer. The information can be about anything! For example, the number of learners in our class with black shoes is data. The favourite colours of our friends is data. We collect data to learn new things and answer questions.

Step 1: Collecting Data with Tally Marks A fun and fast way to count things is by using tally marks. A tally mark is just a straight line ( | ) that stands for 'one'. When we get to five, we do something special to make it easy to count. 1 is represented as: | 2 is represented as: || 3 is represented as: ||| 4 is represented as: |||| 5 is represented as: |||| (We draw a line across the four marks to make a bundle of five!) This makes counting big numbers much easier. For example, |||| || is 5 + 2, which equals 7.

Worked example

Lethu wants to know the favourite season of his friends.

He asks 10 friends and gets these answers: Summer, Winter, Summer, Autumn, Summer, Spring, Winter, Summer, Summer, Autumn.

Let's use tally marks to count this:

Summer: ||||

Autumn: ||

Winter: ||

Spring: |

Step 2: Organising Data in a Table

Once we have our tally marks, we can make our data neat by putting it in a table. A table helps us see the information clearly.

Worked Example (continued from above):

We take Lethu's tally marks and put them into a table.

| Season | Tally Marks | Total Number |

|---------|-------------|--------------|

| Summer | |||| | 5 |

| Autumn | || | 2 |

| Winter | || | 2 |

| Spring | | | 1 |