Data analysis, or statistics, is an important part of the elementary school curriculum. The foundations of the data analysis techniques that are introduced and developed in middle school and beyond are laid in the elementary school curriculum. From the first day of kindergarten, children should ask questions that can be answered by data analysis, and be active in the process of collecting, organizing, displaying, and interpreting data.
One way of ensuring that this occurs is to begin every morning with a data analysis activity. This can be as simple as having children' names or pictures on magnetic cards, choosing a question to ask each morning (like, "How do I get to school in the morning?), and having students place their card in the appropriate part of a ready made chart. As students become more comfortable with this type of activity, it can be used to practice sorting and organizing data, exploring different types of graphs, and learning more about what questions we can ask and what data can tell us about our questions.
The following links will take you to lessons connected to ideas of data analysis: