Pictographs

One of the easiest maths lessons for kindy/reception/prep when work has not been left is a pictograph.

Start by reading a story using just the pictures in a picture book then explain you can use pictures to represent numbers. A pictograph is a way of showing how much of something we have using pictures.

Have a made up pictograph ready to show the children like this:

Then look at the features: title, numbers and labels.

Ask the children what they'd like to make a pictograph of out of a few choices: favourite pet, way of coming to school or favourite lunchtime games. List the categories on a piece of flip chat paper or butchers papers and give children a card to draw their picture on. They then place them into the appropriate category and the class analyse the data together.