Read Works
Read Works:classify/categorize Kindergarten Unit: Sorting to Predetermined Groups
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lesson using the book My Big World Book by Roger Priddy in which students learn to sort items into predetermined categories. Ideas for teaching, guided practice, and independent practice are included....
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Classify the Trees/leaves
Students go outside to look for trees and gather leaves. Working cooperatively they will sort and try to classify the trees by the characteristics of their leaves.
Annenberg Foundation
Annenberg Learner: Patterns in Mathematics: People Patterns
This interactive website offers young students an opportunity to discover the pattern and predict who will come next. Feedback and guidance are given for each response. It also offers three increasingly difficult levels that are available.
SRI International
Performance Assessment Links in Science: Classifying Rocks
This is a performance task where students sort and classify rocks based on their properties, then demonstrate how they can transfer their understanding to decide on ways they might sort and classify other types of objects.
Read Works
Read Works: Genre Kindergarten Unit: Real and Make Believe
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lesson plan where young scholars learn the difference between real and make-believe and practice sorting details into the two categories. Ideas for direct teaching, guided practice, and independent...
Government of Alberta
Learn Alberta: Math Interactives: Exploring Shape Classification
Investigate the properties of triangles, quadrilaterals, and regular polygons using this interactive Learn Alberta math resource. Students are able to practice classifying shapes based on their different properties. Be sure to follow the...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Using and Creating a Dichotomous Key
Middle schoolers will investigate classification through a sorting activity and discus real-life evidence of classifying objects.
Read Works
Read Works: Classify/categorize Kindergarten Unit: Creating Groups and Sorting
[Free Registration/Login Required] A lesson using the book My Big Truck Book by Roger Priddy in which students learn to sort items into categories they create for themselves. Ideas for teaching, guided practice, and independent practice...
Read Works
Read Works: Classify and Categorize 1st Grade Unit
[Free Registration/Login Required] A three-lesson unit on classifying and categorizing through which students learn how to sort items into two and three categories and explain how each group is classified. Finally, students categorize...
Education.com
Education.com: Sorting Objects by Material
[Free Registration/Login Required] This game challenges kids to sort objects by material. Taking their cues from the Three Little Pigs, preschoolers will sort items made of straw into one backpack, sticks into another, and bricks into a...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Introduction to Sorting by Color
Kindergarteners find classifying and ordering fascinating. In this lesson, students learn to sort by color.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Classifying Polygons
This interactive diagram focuses on sorting polygons by common properties and then you select the correct label for each section of the Venn Diagram.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Histogram Sorting Using Cooperative Learning
Students work with 24 histograms representing distributions with differing shapes and characteristics. By sorting the histograms into piles that seem to go together, and by describing those piles, students develop awareness of the...
E-learning for Kids
E Learning for Kids: Science: Scotland Kilt Store: Classify by Property
Mr. Wallace owns a store and needs help sorting items in his shop. Help him explore properties of common objects.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Describing Fall Leaves Through Words and Music
Students collect, describe, and sort leaves found outside. As a cross-curricular component, they will improvise on musical instruments in a way that they feel describes a dominant leaf characteristic.
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Early Chicago Environment and People [Pdf]
"Early Chicago Environment and People" is a one page, nonfiction passage about the early Native Americans who settled in what is now Chicago. It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it...
Other
Sorico: Describing and Comparing Measurable Attributes
The following unit can be used to teach measurable attributes. Students will describe and compare two objects with a measurable concept in common using direct comparison. Included are necessary vocabulary, a scavenger hunt, and links to...
ClassFlow
Class Flow: Animal Sorting
[Free Registration/Login Required] This K-2 flipchart is designed to make animal classification fun! Sort the animals into categories and think like a scientist!
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian in Your Classroom: Teaching With Collections [Pdf]
This lesson is great for young learners who like to collect things. It gives you ideas of ways to teach such concepts as classifying, sorting, arranging, multiplying, graphing, and measuring with collections of simple objects.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Measuring With Mixie Bot
Children can measure with a favorite character to understand the value of standardized units of measure, such as inches and feet. This activity will help them practice measuring and understand comparing the measurements of one item to...
Stanford University
Dreme: Data in the Preschool Classroom
What are the important concepts involved in data collection and data use in the preschool classroom, and how can teachers support the mathematics of data? This article gives a brief description of the concepts that children need to grasp...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Mn Step: Southwest Mn Fish Families
Describes a lesson plan where pupils are introduced to a live fish caught locally. After discussion of its characteristics, and having students draw and label it, they listen to a storybook about fishing, and are introduced to a set of...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Mn Step: Rocks a Lesson in Inquiry
For this activity, students sort and classify rocks in small groups, and record questions they have. The class will sort the questions into investigatory and non-investigatory questions. They will choose one to investigate, make a...
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Minnesota Fish Families
Students will be introduced to Minnesota Fish from their local area, then sort, identify, and classify fish using observations.