The purpose of this activity is for students to interpret data representations and write what they learn about the data. Students may learn different things about the data, but how many in each category and how many in all are most important.
Students might make statements, such as “8 students voted for turtles and dogs.” While this statement might make sense to students, it is not technically correct because it introduces the possibility that some students voted for both turtles and dogs. Emphasize that each student gets only 1 vote. So, a student cannot vote for turtles and dogs. They must vote for turtles or dogs.
In upcoming lessons, students will answer questions, such as “How many students voted for reading or science?” So, it is important to restate students’ statements in this lesson to use “or” instead of “and.”