Tally Charts Worksheets
This form of data visualization is great way to track events of occurrence in many different arenas. A tally is simple a straight vertical line that looks much like the lower letter “l” as in “Larry”. We mark an “l” for every occurrence. When we reach five occurrences, we place a line through the previous four marks that we have made so that it appears as llll. This makes it much easier to count, when you need to go back and actually begin to make sense of the data. It spaces things out in blocks of five. This tool does not scale well. When you are working with events that may have fifty or more occurrences, you may want to use a different tool like a spreadsheet which can handle large loads of data. These worksheets and lessons will help students learn how to use and interpret tally charts.
Aligned Standard: 3.MD.B.3
- Car Make Tally Charts-- It seems like this topic is a recurring theme in all of our graph worksheets.
- Guided Lesson - Interpret a tally chart and then make your own.
- Guided Lesson Explanation - I didn't know whether I should display an actual count up, I just worded it out.
- Practice Worksheet -Sorry that I didn't get too original on the topics for this one.
- Matching Worksheet - Match the tally charts to the data that they represent.
- Using Tally Charts to make Horizontal and Vertical Graphs Five Pack - You are really going to love this one.
- Tally Marks Write Number 5 Pack - Convert tallies to numbers. Nothing more for you.
- Answer Keys - These are for all the unlocked materials above.
Homework Sheets
Try as I did, I could not fit clip art in here to make them pretty.
- Homework 1 - A manager watched which cuisine was ordered most at a restaurant. He looked at four specific cuisines and tallied them as he saw them ordered.
- Homework 2 - See the tally chart to answer this question.
- Homework 3 - Color the grid according to the tally marks to make a basic pictograph.
Practice Worksheets
I had some really fun making these sheets.
- Practice 1 - A shopkeeper watched which toy kids preferred to buy.
- Practice 2 - Which is the least popular form of dance, from the survey?
- Practice 3 - Color according to the tally marks.
Math Skill Quizzes
Answer a questions and then make a graph of the tallies. A cross standard, if you will.
- Quiz 1 - How many people chose Lewis as their favorite brand?
- Quiz 2 - Tally the number of images and write the tally marks.
- Quiz 3 - How many people did not choose a Teddy as their favorite toy?
What Are Tally Charts Used For?
Counting can be tricky for sure. Have you ever wondered how people who lived in the earlier civilizations would count? The most obvious, and the first-ever method for counting, was through hands. Counting on fingers eventually developed as a method of communication. With time, methods for counting started evolving. Between 40,000 to 25,000 years ago, European and African cultures started marking lines on notched bones called Ishango Bones. These lines were the initiation of tally marks, which are now used in tally charts. Notches were carved into the bones for denoting numbers with tally marks. This can be considered as the first tally chart for showing data collection and its representation. So, when we see packets of four cut by a fifth line, the symbol is known as a tally mark. These tally marks represent valuable data. Tally charts are used throughout the world for a visual representation of the data. They are easier to understand and count numbers easily.
These tools are still used a great deal today in just about situation where we are trying to determine a frequency of an occurrence. You will see them used to record observations of experiments by scientists. When performing probability and statistics-based experiments they are frequently used. A very common thing that we hear about on the news is polling of various opinions whether it be for a likeability of a product or political candidate. Statisticians often use this tool when collecting and eventually analyzing the data that was captured.