Sorting It All Out
September 10, 2016
Finally!
Do you ever feel like there is that one topic that you just can't seem to figure out?? How can I make this topic really fun (but not have to spend hours prepping?!) Now, don't get me wrong I often spend hours planning and prepping but for some reason whenever it came to teaching about sorting and organizing I had the hardest time getting excited about my lessons...until now!!!
I think I have finally "Sorted It All Out!!" and boy, could I not be more excited to finally have landed on this lesson!
Here are some of the sorting and organizing activities we did this week...
Guess My Sort: I started out by randomly choosing a couple of students to come up in the front of the classroom. Then I told the class: I chose these students to come up here because I sorted them by something that they all have in similarity. When a person sorts things, that means they group items together after finding something that all of the items have in common. Then the students guessed how I sorted this group of students (the color of their shirt). Then I did the same thing with another group (by type - all girls). Finally, a third group (all similar height - this was the hardest one!)
Students found so many sorts which was great because I said "yes! You are right that is a sort, but that is not what my brain was thinking when I sorted them), and finally I told the students to make a shape, any shape with their hands, and then I brought the kids up based on that (shape).
Lucky Charms: Each child got a scoop of lucky charms and was told them to sort them. Then we discussed the sorts we found. Then they had to sort them a 2nd way. Again, we shared. This was absolutely a class favorite (and a favorite for me since it required very little prep!!)!!
One other thing I loved about this activity was that it allowed us to talk about what we can learn from our sorts. For example: we discovered that there is more cereal than marshmallows and why that may be significant information to know.
3 Little Firefighters: While they ate their Lucky Charms, we read this sorting story and talked about the sorts/created an anchor chart while reading.
Guess My Sort: I started out by randomly choosing a couple of students to come up in the front of the classroom. Then I told the class: I chose these students to come up here because I sorted them by something that they all have in similarity. When a person sorts things, that means they group items together after finding something that all of the items have in common. Then the students guessed how I sorted this group of students (the color of their shirt). Then I did the same thing with another group (by type - all girls). Finally, a third group (all similar height - this was the hardest one!)
Students found so many sorts which was great because I said "yes! You are right that is a sort, but that is not what my brain was thinking when I sorted them), and finally I told the students to make a shape, any shape with their hands, and then I brought the kids up based on that (shape).
Lucky Charms: Each child got a scoop of lucky charms and was told them to sort them. Then we discussed the sorts we found. Then they had to sort them a 2nd way. Again, we shared. This was absolutely a class favorite (and a favorite for me since it required very little prep!!)!!
One other thing I loved about this activity was that it allowed us to talk about what we can learn from our sorts. For example: we discovered that there is more cereal than marshmallows and why that may be significant information to know.
3 Little Firefighters: While they ate their Lucky Charms, we read this sorting story and talked about the sorts/created an anchor chart while reading.
0 comments