Dear IDEEM #2

Dear IDEEM #2: Data Before the Bell

Tags: data science activities, math activities, elementary, grade 4, phonics, warmup

Dear data scientists,

I hope your classrooms are starting to find their rhythm and that you’re finding small moments of new joy in the early days.

This week’s spotlight comes from a grade 4 teacher Harpreet who turned the very first moment of the school year into a data invitation.

Before even meeting the students, Harpreet placed an easel outside the classroom door with a chart sorting names by short a and long a vowel sounds. As students arrived and put down their backpacks, they were already marking the chart—no instructions needed.

That simple act provided a wealth of information. Harpreet learned who could follow the instructions and mark the chart independently, and who were needing peer or teacher support. She could also assess their phonics prior knowledge that students were bringing with them. All this, before the school day even officially began.

We can see that 'double data', or a bivariate display of information, was charted! Go Harpreet!

Since then, the class has continued to interact with the chart on the easel once or twice a week right outside the classroom. As an extension, students now copy the chart onto graph paper for their individual data portfolios. What a neat concept! The next step? Students will begin gathering data based on their own questions and designing their own ways to represent it.

🎯 Small move, big impact: This is such a powerful example of how data work can be layered into classroom routines—observational, low-pressure, and curiosity-sparking. Thank you for sharing, Harpreet!

🔍 Reflect & Try

What’s one data-related question you could post—on a chart, a sticky note, or a whiteboard—that students might naturally engage with as they enter your classroom?

📨 Want to Share?

If you have a classroom image, chart, quote, or other data artifact (anonymized is great!), I’d love to share it in a future Dear IDEEM post. These glimpses into each other’s classrooms are already sparking ideas for others. Please include a few background context sentences so I can elaborate.

Here’s to the charts that speak for themselves.

Bridget

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