Kids and Data: Picture Graphs, Bar Graphs, Pie Charts, and Beyond
What is Data and Charts?
In everyday life, kids quickly notice that objects can be compared and grouped. For example, they might count how many blocks the teddy bear has and how many the bunny has. Or they’ll check which cars are more common on the street — red or grey. These observations are the first steps toward understanding data.
So, what exactly is data? It’s simply information we collect and organize. Imagine kids sharing their favorite fruits. If we write it down, we won’t forget who picked apples and who picked bananas. That list of favorites — that’s data!
And charts? Charts help make that information easy to see.
You can make a table where each kid’s photo is shown next to the fruit they picked.
Or you can create a picture graph: for every kid who chose apples, draw one apple; for every kid who chose pears, draw one pear.
Another way is a bar graph: above the name of each fruit, draw as many squares as the number of kids who picked it.
There are other ways too — pie charts, line graphs, and even detailed tables. These tools give kids fun ways to spot patterns, make comparisons, and figure things out on their own.
Why Does It Matter for Kids?
Today, data literacy is becoming as essential as traditional skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic. Working with data helps kids notice and interpret the information around them, compare real-life experiences with their descriptions, and build the foundations of critical thinking.
When kids sort toys by color, count apples, or check whether a box has more blocks or balls, they are already taking their very first steps in data work. Research shows that when kids learn to show information in pictures and ask questions about it, their curiosity grows, and so does their ability to analyze and find patterns. Even in preschool, simple activities such as collecting and comparing information support a deeper understanding of numbers and their relationships.
Strong data skills also foster critical awareness. Kids learn to evaluate sources and reflect carefully on information, which later helps them resist false claims. When data literacy becomes part of school learning, it not only raises math proficiency but also strengthens kids’ confidence in their own abilities. Teachers who are confident in the language of data can nurture these habits more effectively and make learning more empowering.
Ultimately, the ability to collect, compare, and understand data becomes the foundation for making well-reasoned decisions, tackling unusual problems, and navigating the world of information with confidence.
How Do We Teach?
Young kids start by sorting objects or pictures by color, shape, or size, and answering simple questions like “How many in total?” or “Which group has more?”
Young kids start by sorting objects or pictures by color, shape, or size, and answering simple questions like “How many in total?” or “Which group has more?” Then they learn to compare and order objects by length or another attribute, line them up, and begin exploring picture graphs. From there, it’s an easy step to bar graphs and simple tables, and later to standard two-way tables, where the rows represent colors and the columns represent shapes.
At each stage, we use words like “more/less,” “how many more/less,” “compare,” “count” and keep asking increasingly challenging questions. This way, kids practice not just counting, but also understanding the question itself and interpreting the data.
Older kids are introduced to pie charts, where they see parts of a whole, and to line graphs that show change over time. They also learn how an object’s coordinates shift as it moves. In one activity, kids use both hands to control a little boat — the left hand sets the vertical coordinate, the right hand sets the horizontal — and they watch how this changes the boat’s path.
First Steps
Sorting and Ordering by Size
At around 3 to 4 years old, kids begin to develop their very first classification skills. They can already answer simple questions about a picture, such as:
How many balls are there?
How many toy cars?
How many toys in total?
How many blue toys?
Visual addition and subtraction
Visual addition
Step by step, kids also learn to handle slightly more complex questions: “How many cats are sitting in boxes? or How many gray cats are on the top shelf?”
They start to order objects by length and compare them by other sizes as well.
Classification skills can be practiced through play, during clean-up time, or even while sorting recycling. Parents can make it more fun by asking prediction questions: “What will be left when we take down all the socks from the clothesline?” or “What stays if we throw out all the plastic and metal objects?”
Visual addition and subtraction
Counting with pictures
Order by length and height
Order by length
Operations
Simple operations
Earth Day
Classify and sort
Deep Understanding
Working with Picture Graphs and Filling Tables
As kids get older, they begin working with picture graphs. When objects are shown in two rows, it’s easy to answer questions like which row has more and even “how many more”. To figure it out, kids just need to count the objects that stick out in the longer row.
Tables and coordinates
Picture graphs
They also work with images where objects are stacked one on top of another, forming columns. Kids can choose the picture where the number of objects keeps growing. That’s their very first hands-on experience with bar graphs.
At this stage, kids also count objects of each kind and record the numbers in a table, or they look for the table that matches the picture shown.
More and less
Measurements
Monotone behaviors
Order by height
Tables and coordinates
Models for word problems
Confident Mastery
Exploring Pie Charts and Controlling Movement Paths
Older kids start answering more complex picture questions, like: “How many kids are riding scooters and wearing red helmets?” It helps to first find the scooters, then spot the kids in red helmets, and only after that count them.
Visual addition and subtraction
Counting with pictures
Working with tables also becomes more advanced. Kids now take into account two attributes of each object. For example, they might count the number of legs and eyes of an alien and then choose the table that fits it best.
Pie charts also appear at this stage, with circle sections marked by simple fractions.
Data can even describe continuous processes, such as how a point moves across a plane. A key insight here is that a situation can involve two parameters that change independently — like the horizontal and vertical coordinates of a point. For example, in a game where they guide a little boat, kids move it with both hands: one sets the vertical coordinate, the other the horizontal, and together they steer the boat to its target.
A line graph of a car’s movement might look like a hill the car is climbing. Kids learn to recognize when a path always goes up or always goes down.
Tables and coordinates
Properties and attributes
Fractions and pie-charts
Pie charts
Coordinates
Coordinates: movement along grid lines
Monotone behaviors
Monotone behaviors with roads
Big Ideas
Work with data continues in high school, where kids calculate different functions from it — averages, sums, medians, and more. This early experience with data becomes a huge advantage when they move on to probability theory.
Pie charts naturally lead to exploring fractions and percentages.
Bar graphs and movement paths later support learning in physics and help kids understand how function graphs work.
