Begin this concept by explaining that a pictograph is a way to show the results of a survey. In your survey, students will vote for their favorite ice cream flavor -- vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. Conduct the survey and use tally marks to record results on the class whiteboard.
After you have survey results on the board, you will have students copy a pictograph from the board on a worksheet. The first column in every row shows a symbol or picture for the flavor. The second column in each row shows the count, or number of people who like that flavor of ice cream.
Give each student a group of Skittles (or crayons or colored beads). Students tally up the number of each color of Skittles and record the information on a pictograph. You might have to provide a chart and draw in a Skittles as a colored circle. For students ages 7 to 9, keep the total number of objects manageable, such as 100 or less Skittles. Students can work in pairs to check each other's results by counting and verifying his counts in his partner's chart.
In fourth grade and beyond, students should understand basic multiplication. Use a pictograph with a simple key for this activity. In a key, a symbol shows that one symbol or picture represents a set number of objects. For instance, one picture of a book might represent 20 books. Give students a pictograph with a key with only books. Ask students to answer questions, such as which person has the most books and which person has the least books. Ask students to write a list of the number of books for each person. Older students can perform other tasks, such as finding the mean, median, mode and range in this data set.