Ask the students to use linking cubes to make towers to represent a bar graph. If the bar graph shows the number of students who prefer chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, or mint ice cream, use the linking cube towers to show how many students prefer each type of ice cream. If six children prefer chocolate ice cream, stack six linking cubes together. After the students make the bar graph using the linking cubes, ask them to rearrange the towers so each tower is the same height. Evening out the linking cubes gives the students the mean of the data. The number of cubes in the towers of equal height is the mean.
The median is the middle number in a set of data. Ask the students to line up in order from shortest to tallest. The shortest student will be at one side of the classroom, and the tallest at the other side with all the other students arranged by height in between. To find the median, ask the tallest child and the shortest child to sit down. Repeat this process by asking the next tallest student and the next shortest student to sit down. Continue until there is only one child left. That child's height represents the median height of the students. If there are two children left, the median is the mean of the two children's height.
Mode is the number that shows up the most often in a set of data. Collect data about the number of letters in each child's name by separating them into groups according to the number of letters in their name to see which group has the most students. Ask the children with two letters in their names to stand together. Repeat this process with names containing three letters, four letters, and all other data points. The group with the most children in the group is the mode of the data.
Students can find other data landmarks -- maximum, minimum and range. Ask students to record high and low temperatures in a city of their choice for a week. Collect the maximum temperature -- largest data point, and the minimum temperature -- the smallest data point from each child. To find the range, ask the students to find the difference between the maximum and the minimum.