[calumetteach]

I am hoping it will go well. I am SO out of my element with these little ones. I knew my other grade level objectives backwards, forwards and upside-down and had great tricks to help them learn.

So I will be at a point in the math curriculum where we are sorting. I will be finishing with a book assessment of kids sorting paper buttons. I think I have enough buttons to do a real sorting kind of activity. All these manipulatives stress me. Any suggestions for me? What kind of sorting activities have you done?


Thanks so much.

[DRV]

If you are interested, there is a book called "The Button Box" by Margarette S. Reid. I read it every year with my students before we do a button sorting activity.

We talk about the different ways we could sort the buttons, and then I give each table a box of buttons, and the kids start sorting. I walk around and talk to them about how they are sorting.

When I assess/teach sorting, I generally use attribute blocks. The button activity is just for fun.

[Zia]

Funny story: years ago, as a report card assessment, I had kids sort a pile of shapes. Most kids do it by shape first and I ask them to do it another way and they figure out to do it by size or color.



One kid put all the circles in one pile and every other shape in another. I asked him to tell me how he sorted them. He said (and I will never forget this), "These all have angles and the circles don't have any."


Well, alrighty then. Let's start a gifted referral, shall we?

[Sbkangas5]

I love doing sorting, and love doing it for observations! It's so fun for kids. Here's my favorite sorting activity:


Have the kids sit in a big circle and put two hula hoops in the middle. Give everyone an object to be sorted, and tell them how they will be sorted. Start simple and start with two categories that all the objects fit in. The best things for this, if you have them, are attribute shapes.


Next, make the categories a little more complicated. For example, one hoop is triangles and one hoop is red shapes. Make sure there are a few red triangles, and you give them to the kids that think outside the box. Choose those kids last, and let them figure out how they can sort them when they belong in both categories. 99% of the time they will figure out on their own how a venn diagram works.


Last, do it again but give a few kids objects that don't fit in any category. See if anyone realizes that you can put them outside of the hoops.


Totally interactive and shows lots of levels of thinking. I always love it and so does admin!


ETA another fun activity is to sort the kids. First with known categories, then I pull some kids up and they have to figure out how I sorted them.

[calumetteach]

I love all of your ideas. I am so stuck on this silly math book we have and it is so "flat." I've always pepped my lessons up. This helps me to think outside of the box.

Sbkangas5! What a great idea! Thank you so much. I love it!! Now I'm looking forward to being observed.

Thank you again...have a great week everyone!