Students work in small groups or pairs. Provide students with a collection of mixed loose items. Ask students to work together to sort the collection.

Circulate and observe students as they work together to categorise the collection.

When students have sorted their collections ask students if they can arrange the items to see the groups more clearly.

Take students on a gallery walk to observe the various ways the sorted collections have been displayed.

Use student samples to highlight the ways in which data can be helpful or misleading in a visual representation. For example, items lined up end-to-end may be visually compared by length which may not accurately reflect the quantity in each group, and this could be misleading. Alternatively, groups of items that are aligned with the corresponding quantities in other groups are easy to compare.

Introduce a grid and ask students what they notice about the structure of the grid. Draw attention to the useful ways the structure can support lining up items to compare quantities. Support students to begin at the same starting point to arrange each group of objects next to one another in columns or rows, placing one object in each square.

Look at the completed grid together and discuss the ease with which the quantities of each group can be seen. Ask students what they notice about the information visible in the display.

Provide small groups of students with a grid to arrange their collections into a data display. Record student work including observations students make about the data in the display they have created.