How to Use Tallies

Tallying - Start to Finish

• 1

  Select what information you want to count. You may want to survey your neighborhood's favorite vacation spots or foods, the most prevalent eye and hair colors in your extended family or determine the busiest hours in a coffee shop.

• 2

  Select the type of tally to use. This can be as simple as using a tally counter to track the number of people who enter the café every hour. Or deciding to use blank cards of a different color for each category to be counted, such as eye color and hair color. (Columns in the cards can depict relationships such as brothers, cousins, maternal aunts, etc.) Or if children are involved, they may like using different colored sticks of wood which they can notch with a blade or colored strings which they can knot.

• 3

  Mark a tally for each event. Depress the switch on a tally counter for each person entering. Use a pen to jot a vertical line on a tally card each time an event occurs, then cross four of them diagonally to designate a grouping of five. Cut a notch on a stick. You may use different widths to indicate different magnitudes. For example, a single cut marks 1, a cut the breadth of a little finger is 10, a cut the breadth of a thumb is 100, etc. If using string, tie a single knot, double knot or triple knot to likewise indicate a different power of ten.

• 4

  Count up the results. These are the answers to general questions such as, "How many neighbors prefer pizza to hamburgers?" Or, "When were the busiest times at the coffee shop, breakfast or lunch?" To more easily compare results, use the data in the tallies to create illustrated charts.