Here is a sample table of the pets a class owns. A frequency table just lists how many of each thing we counted: five dogs, three cats, six fish, and no rabbits.

If we wanted to draw this so everyone could read it at a glance, what could we draw for the cats?

Hands up: if we drew one little cat for every cat, how many cats would we draw in the cat row?

Watch as we build each row of the pictogram on the board, one picture for each pet. Count the symbols with me. Which row is longest, and what does an empty row tell us?

Today, let's place one symbol for each item in every row of our pictogram. We'll use a sample table of the pets a class owns and build it together on the board.

Today we work through these counts together, building a tidy row for each one: 4, then 7, then 9, then 12. Keep every symbol the same size and start each row at the same edge.

Today we learned

• A pictogram shows data with pictures, one row for each thing we counted.
• When one symbol means one, the count is just the number of symbols in the row.
• Keeping symbols the same size and rows lined up makes the chart fair to read.