We could ask the class anything at all today.

Some questions are easy to count, and some are not.

If I ask "what do you like?", everyone says something different. We could never count that.

If I ask "which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange?", every answer fits one of just three groups.

Which of those two questions would be easier to count?

Watch how we tidy up a messy question. "What do you like?" is too big — nobody could count all those answers. We can shape it into "which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange?" Now there are only three answers, and every person fits one of them. Look at the pre-set tally below: the three answer headings are ready, and the counts are already gathered. Notice how each answer had exactly one heading to land under.

Now watch a second question take shape. "How do you travel?" becomes "how do you travel to school — walk, cycle, car or bus?" Four tidy answers, and the headings are set up before we count a single hand.

Now we pick one question for the whole class and get it ready to count. Our class question today is: which is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange? This is the question we will all write in our copies later, so remember it.

Here is what happens now: one pupil comes to the board, sets up the three answer headings, and tallies each hand as it goes up. Everyone else watches and puts a hand up when their answer is called. Watch that every hand fits one heading — if a hand does not fit, our headings need fixing.

Now we shape a few more countable questions together, one at a time. For each one, we only choose the tidy answers and set the headings — we do not count hands this time.

We will do three, one after another:

• Favourite fruit — choose the tidy answers.
• How we travel to school — set the four headings.
• Favourite season — set the four headings.

Each question is a little trickier than the last.