Here is a tally chart you collected with the class earlier in this unit, and beside it a blank canvas with two empty axes. How would we turn this tally into a chart that tells the same story at a glance?

Watch carefully as three finished bar charts appear on the screen. The same shape rules every time: categories along the bottom, frequency climbing the side, and one bar per category — taller for more, shorter for less.

School commute

Twelve walk, five cycle, eight come by bus, three by car. Notice that the 'Walk' bar is the tallest of the four because it has the biggest count.

Favourite fruit

Nine apples, seven bananas, four oranges, five pears. The chart sorts your counts into bars; the order of the bars matches the order on the x-axis.

Pets at home

Fourteen dog-owners, eight cat-owners — and now look carefully — three with fish, and three with no pet at all. The last two bars are the same height. We call those tied categories.

Now the class works through one chart together at the board. The categories are already in place along the x-axis: Walk, Cycle, Bus, Car. Read the tally aloud, then drag each bar up to its frequency. Read every height back before checking.