The 100 is a popular TV show that has been running for over 5 seasons. It’s about a group of kids who have to find a way to survive on Earth after the planet was destroyed by nuclear war. In Season 1, one of the main characters discovers a new activity called sorting activities and it changes her life forever.
The sorting activities worksheets is a question that many people have been asking. In this article, we will explore the benefits of sorting activities.
The most essential activity your kid will ever undertake is sort.
Other types of play aren’t feasible without it. And when done well, it can be a superpower.
We’ll look at various sorting tasks and how to introduce them in this easy tutorial.
What exactly is sorting, and why is it necessary?
Sorting is a straightforward process. Isn’t it enough to just categorize things together based on their characteristics?
So, why are there 2000 paragraphs on the topic?
Because sorting is so important. It’s the foundation for all other abilities.
Here’s a quince for you. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried one. What does it have in common with stuff I’m already acquainted with? Is it possible for me to make assumptions about it based on what I know about comparable fruits? It has the appearance of a pear yet is as hard as an apple. Is it going to be sweet or sour? It seems to be unripe and has an unripe feel to it. I believe it will be razor-sharp. It belongs to the apple family, as far as I can tell (though as I investigate further I may change my mind).
This kind of pattern recognition accelerates learning. You will be able to comprehend anything quicker if you can recognize and organize it quickly and effectively.
It is considerably simpler to study another foreign language if you already know one. You already have a good idea of what to search for. You already know there will be vocab, verb tables, and pronouns to memorize. You won’t have to start from the beginning. Learning new verbs will be lot simpler since you’ll already be familiar with how they function.
Sorting vs. matching
Contrary to popular belief, matching is all about contrast. Object 1 is shown here, and Object 2 is shown here. We compare them side by side and examine each feature separately. Is their form the same? Are they the same size? Is it the same color? If that’s the case, they’re compatible. They don’t differ at all, assuming there is any difference at all.
Sorting, on the other hand, is the process of identifying commonalities. The items don’t have to be identical, just similar enough. On one side, there are cats, and on the other, there are dogs. It makes no difference if some cats are black and others are white.
It’s far simpler to play Snap! than it is to organize your bookshelf. Matching is a straightforward process. Are these two items the same? Is it possible to say yes or no? Sorting, on the other hand, requires assessment and decision-making.
“You can comprehend something quicker and more effectively if you can recognize and organize it quickly and efficiently.”
We may call it sorting if we have to choose between red, green, or blue socks, but it’s actually simply a kind of matching. Is this a red sock? If the answer is yes, it will be placed in the red pile. Whether not, see if it’s blue or green.
What, on the other hand, do you do with a turquoise sock? Or how about a teal one? How about a blue and green striped one? This is sorting, and it requires higher-order reasoning. The categories are up to interpretation. They evolve when fresh knowledge becomes available.
Can you see how you’d want to play matching games with a newborn or toddler but give a preschooler more complex sorting tasks?
The distinction between sorting and categorizing
To categorize anything is to group it into one of many groups. Students either get firsts, seconds, or thirds when they graduate from university, or they fail. The categories (or classifications) are predetermined. There’s no way we’ll run across a kid with a fourth-class diploma.
Sorting, as we’ve seen, is more flexible. Assume you’re organizing your socks while playing a color matching game. Socks with stripes go in one drawer, while those with spots go in another. However, you eventually stumble upon a pair of simple socks. It’s not an issue; just make a new pile for these. Instead of two groups, you now have three.
Sorting for infants
The first kind of sorting was noticing
What was your very first video game?
It was something you did when you were still in the womb.
It was there from the beginning, millions of years ago, when life first started.
There would be no other way to learn if it weren’t for it. It’s the most basic ability. It is a popular game among pre-schoolers. It may be found in any children’s magazine.
Have you figured it out yet?
Look for the differences.
There’s light and there’s darkness; there’s sound or there’s no sound. A fetus is aware of a great deal.
Babies can tell the difference between a mother and a non-mother from the moment they are born. Two biscuits are preferred by toddlers over one. Preschoolers search for differences between the letters ‘b’ and ‘d.’ Differentiation is at the heart of all learning.
How does this new item fit into what I already know about the world? a kid will wonder. Is it possible for me to fit it into one of my mental pigeon holes? Or do I need to pay more attention and dig deeper?
Put yourself in your child’s shoes for a moment. What do they know already? Now concentrate on what’s fresh and different. Request that they take note of this.
They’ll have to come to their own conclusions. You won’t be able to force them to learn. They will, however, have progressed on the path to deeper knowledge.
Observation transforms into selection
Babies lack the motor control to reach for and examine intriguing objects consistently. They learn that the universe is made up of distinct things as their eyesight improves. Babies spend a lot of time studying the borders of things and people, attempting to figure out where one thing stops and another starts, according to research. As a result, kids should be given high-contrast toys throughout their first few months. A mobile with a variety of off-white soft toys whirling above against a white ceiling is not conducive to learning.
You may give your infant a choice of things to pick from once they are ready to sit up and grip. This is when a prize basket comes in handy.
Your kid is just learning to select based on what seems to be the most attractive at this point. They recognize and prefer items from prior sessions while sitting in the basket, indicating that their memory is developing (memory is a vital element of sorting).
Toys like shape sorters, basic puzzles, and stackers may all assist a baby understand the difference between colors and shapes as they grow stronger and can sit up on their own and grab objects (while also giving them a great fine-motor challenge.)
Baby sorting toys that are the best
- Sorter by Shape | Geometric forms are the most straightforward. Animal sorters are a step up for experts.
- Start with circles and work your way up to squares, triangles, and single-piece knobbed animal puzzles. As the lines of rotational symmetry diminish, the difficulty rises.
- Towers of Stacking | These conical towers begin sorting by size at the age of ten months. Choose the wobbly tower for a smaller, safer alternative.
- Balls and matching bowls | Even simpler than a shape sorter, balls and matching bowls are a great way to get started with sorting, but the emphasis at this age is on motor control and matching.
Sorting activities for toddlers
In a world where most things are chosen for them, toddlers are attracted to sorting activities because they enable them to establish their own sense of order, to be in control of this box of beads or this collection of colorful silks. They are learning to organize and build systems that will inform and underlie their play for years to come in this way.
You don’t, however, need any additional equipment. Sorting is just as simple to include into daily circumstances as it is to incorporate into everyday things. When emptying the dishwasher, ask them to sort the dishes by size before placing them in the cabinet; when a bedroom gets cluttered, arrange the toys by kind; and when shoes in the corridor become jumbled, classify them by who they belong to. If you want these types of sorting tasks to be worthwhile, make them purposeful rather than arbitrary. So, rather of asking your kid to sort the socks by color (which may result in a pile including multiple family members’ socks, which will then need to be sorted again to be put away), sort them by family member.
Meaningful activities are preferable than discovering anything on Pinterest that seems to be ‘educational.’
Avoid the sorts of camera-friendly activities you find on Pinterest if you decide to make your own sorting activity. Giving your kid some colored bowls, pom-poms, and tongs and asking her to match the balls to the appropriate pots isn’t fundamentally bad. The problem is that it isn’t something she picked for herself, therefore she may not be interested or stick with it for very long. Make sorting items readily available, and your kid will seek them out when she is ready. She may love gathering pom-poms, but only because she chooses to do so.
When do kids start learning about shapes and colors?
We often overlook how early our youngsters learn to recognize colors. Many of us offer our children color matching activities to do, but if your kid is 30 months old and shows little interest in sorting pom-poms into primary-colored bowls, it’s possible that they have accomplished this job. Just because they don’t know how to identify colors doesn’t imply they won’t be able to finish the task. The same may be said about shapes.
Your 10-month-old kid may be quite content to finish a shape puzzle on his own. You may be able to tell him to “give me the red square” or “show me the yellow circle.” He’ll get it; he simply won’t be able to articulate it yet. He may even be able to distinguish between a red circle and a red triangle when sorting by two criteria.
Although hardly everyone enrolls their kid in a shapes and colors bootcamp, an 18-month-old is fully capable of doing all of the above. Sorting by color should come easily by the age of three, so follow your child’s lead.
Toddlers’ favorite sorting toys
One of the reasons that pom-pom games are so tedious is because they go much longer than they should. You either know or don’t know your colors. Adding the tenth pom-pom to the bowl adds nothing to the equation. You’ll get the first one right if you can match properly, and the others will be unnecessary.
We love open-ended play at 100 Toys, but for basic activities like color matching, it’s far more gratifying – and motivating – to tackle something with a predetermined result, like as a shape sorter. A toddler’s favorite phrase has to be “I did it!” They are learning how to do things and are very proud of their achievements. Simple puzzles and matching-picture games are ideal for kids. Puzzles provide immediate feedback. It will fit if the shape is correct.
Sorting activities for preschoolers
Your kid will eventually learn to sort using the Venn and Carroll diagrams that they are taught in school. Is it in the five-digit multiplication table? Is it in the two-digit multiplication table? Is it present in both? Is it in none of them? However, there are plenty of sorting games and activities for pre-schoolers to enjoy at home before they reach that level of arithmetic.
Sorting activities for preschoolers get increasingly complicated and difficult at this point. Where it used to be about matching socks or organizing blocks, it’s now about the differences between their ever-growing list of criteria, features, and qualities.
Playing with loose components is a lot of fun.
Loose parts play is closely linked to sorting, in which youngsters experiment with vast numbers of similar materials, such as the lovely Grapat cones, flowers, beehives, and other forms shown in these photos. Of course, you don’t need to purchase anything for this kind of game. Stones and pine cones are good examples of found materials.
By this age, children can sort using more complex criteria. When you realize that it’s much more efficient to categorize the pieces into groups such as edges, corners, and middle pieces, as well as grouping them according to which part of the picture they correspond to, for example, for a landscape, you might collect all the sky pieces in one pile and the land in another, a 100-piece puzzle becomes a brilliant sorting activity.
Choosing your own sorting criteria, such as when collecting a bunch of pebbles, is a step farther. A trip to the Natural History Museum’s mineral halls prompted No. 2 son to make his own display table in his room. But how do you put them together? Is it by color? In terms of size? What do you mean by material? He altered the categories many times during the following several days, but his decisions were always reasonable. There isn’t a single pom pom or colored dish to be found.
Preschoolers’ favorite sorting toys
- Matching games for letters and numbers (letter and number bingo)
- A sorting tray, such as the Tinker Tray by Grapat. The children are allowed to categorize in whatever way they choose.
- Puzzles jigsaw
- Bead threading
- Materials derived from nature
- Snap, Happy Families, and more card games
- Shape Tack and sorting boards are two-dimensional shape games.
- (also known as Animal, mineral, or vegetable?) 20 questions
How can sorting help you develop higher-order cognitive skills?
Sorting eventually leads to the development of higher order cognitive abilities (or HOTS). These abilities are ranked in order of difficulty: some are more difficult to master than others. It’s far simpler to remember a truth than it is to figure out what to do with it. The following abilities are listed in decreasing order of difficulty:
- Evaluation
- Synthesis
- Analysis
- Application
- Comprehension
- Knowledge
*These abilities are often referred to as Bloom’s taxonomy, after the guy who created the categorization system.
Analysis, assessment, and synthesis (creation of new information) abilities, for example, are considered to be of a higher order than memorizing facts, which may frequently be learned by rote.
Higher-order thinking abilities are ultimately more useful since they are more likely to be transferrable across a variety of circumstances, as opposed to facts and ideas, which have a narrower range of applications.
Bloom’s taxonomy is organized in stages, each of which builds on the previous one. Children must first be able to recall the items in their hands. Then they must figure out what the item is (e.g. red, a square, shiny). The next step is to figure out what you’re going to do with it, or what criteria it’ll be sorted against. The blue dish is for blue items. The higher-order cognitive abilities are then used. Is my sorting correct? How could I have arranged the items any other way? Now I’m able to make my own choices and arrange them according to my own criteria. Sorting is the basis of higher order thinking, to put it simply.
Bloom’s taxonomy of psychological abilities is a classification system for psychological abilities.
Advice on how to get the most out of sorting
- Make use of tangible items, such as actual things. Worksheets should be left at school.
- Sorting criteria should be stated explicitly. Request that your kid define the categories.
- Each category should have its own receptacle so that sorted objects may be physically transferred to the appropriate location.
Increasing the difficulty
- Close the gap between the categories: how would you classify automobiles, bicycles, and scooters? What might a motorized scooter be used for? Why?
Last but not least
If you just remember one thing from this article, keep in mind that sorting is all about observing. It all comes down to paying attention. Your kid has a superpower if she can sit still and pay attention. In a world increasingly dominated by screens, where we are amused rather than challenged, she will have a tremendous edge if she can concentrate on the job at hand and think rationally about the decisions she makes.
Has your perspective on sorting activities changed as a result of this post? Do you have any suggestions for activities I should include? Please let me know in the comments section.
The types of play is a great way to help children learn about the different types of activities that they can do. One type of play is sorting activities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are sorting activities important?
Sorting activities are important because they help to make sure that you have a clear understanding of the different types of objects in your environment.
What are sorting activities?
Sorting activities are tasks that require you to organize objects. This includes sorting them by color, size, shape, etc.
Why is sorting important for kindergarten?
Sorting is important for kindergarten because it helps children learn how to organize and categorize their things. It also helps them learn how to sort through materials, find what they need, and put things away when theyre done.
