Representing numbers: Tally marks

All You Need in One Place

Everything you need for Year 6 maths and science through to Year 13 and beyond.

Learn with Confidence

We’ve mastered the national curriculum to help you secure merit and excellence marks.

Unlimited Help

The best tips, tricks, walkthroughs, and practice questions available.

0/2
?
Intros
Lessons
  1. Introduction to Tally Marks:
  2. How do you draw tally marks?
  3. How do you count tally marks?
0/16
?
Examples
Lessons
  1. Count the Tally Marks
    Count the tally marks. What number do they represent?
    1. Representing Numbers: Tally Marks
    2. Representing Numbers: Tally Marks
    3. Representing Numbers: Tally Marks
    4. Representing Numbers: Tally Marks
  2. Draw the Tally Marks
    Draw the number using tally marks.
    1. 12
    2. 29
    3. 57
  3. Understanding Tally Mark Charts
    Madison asked all her classmates about their favorite fruits. This is the tally chart from her survey:

    Representing Numbers: Tally Marks


    1. What is the most common favorite fruit? How many people said this fruit was their favorite?
    2. What is the least common favorite fruit? And how many people said this fruit was their favorite?
    3. How many people are in her class?
  4. Creating a Tally Mark Chart - 1
    Oscar threw a six-sided die 40 times and got these results:

    6, 5, 1, 3, 4, 4, 4, 2, 1, 3, 6, 1, 4, 3, 2, 6, 5, 5, 3, 2,

    5, 2, 1, 6, 5, 2, 6, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 6, 1, 6, 4, 1, 5, 2, 3
    1. Make a tally chart of the results.
    2. How many times did the die land on 6?
  5. Creating a Tally Chart - 2
    Isabelle asked her friends what their favorite colors are.

    Emma answered red; Beth answered blue; Michelle answered green, Candice answered blue; Jennifer answered pink; Sue answered blue; Mia answered yellow; Ava answered pink; Sam answered red; Olivia answered blue; Liz answered red; Abby answered blue.
    1. Make a tally chart of the results.
    2. What was the least common favorite color?
  6. Creating a Tally Chart - 3
    William's teacher likes to add one really long word to the weekly spelling tests.

    This week's word is "spectrophotofluorometrically".
    1. Make a tally of all the different letters in the word
    2. What was the most common letter and how many times does it appear in the word?
0%
?
Practice
Topic Notes
?

In this lesson, we will learn:

  • How to draw tally marks
  • How to count tally marks
  • How to use tally marks for survey results

Notes:

  • Tally marks were first used during the prehistoric age, about 30,000 years ago!
    • Each line (or “tally”) represents one
    • Every 5th tally is drawn diagonally across the last 4

Representing Numbers: Tally Marks

  • You count tally marks by skip counting by 5. You know that each group with a diagonal is 5.
    • 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50
    • Or you can count two tally groups as 10, and skip count by 10
    • Any left-over tally marks, you count separately and add on to your total

    Representing Numbers: Tally Marks