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Number Name Sorting Cards

My third post on sorting cards! I love sorting cards! I think they should be used much more often in schools for so many reasons. You can read about some of them in one of my two previous posts on sorting cards:

Biomes Sorting Cards

Idioms Sorting Cards

Math is a place where sorting cards can be especially helpful. In fact, sorting is a part of math. One reason I think sorting is so powerful in math is that some kids have a lot of math anxiety. Sorting takes away a lot of that anxiety because all of the answers are on the table. Kids can also work with a partner which takes away some stress as well.

In second grade, students are expected to name numbers using numerals, number names, and expanded form. These sorting cards have all three of these forms. These would actually be a great way to introduce these number forms because kids will be able to sort even if they don't know the term "expanded form". Once they have some experience, later lessons will make more sense.

Here is a video of the sort in action.

You can see how much fun these girls are having. Sorting numbers! It is crazy!

You can purchase the cards at Teachers pay Teachers.

Idioms Sorting Cards

Sorting is such a valuable tool in education. I have many thoughts on it. You can read some of them in my first sorting card post here:

Biomes Sorting Cards

Idioms are one of those things that I struggled to find a place for in my classroom. I always had a large cohort of ELL students in my room, and English language learners do not understand idioms. I don't think I would get them in another language either!

Adding the difficulty reading in English that a lot of these kids had, most of the idioms resources I had in my room just didn't cut it. Ha! An idiom!

This summer I started collecting pictures of idioms from Shutterstock to make into sorting cards. The cards have a cartoon of an idiom or a picture that shows what the idiom means. 

There are so many ways to use these cards. You could have an idiom of the week and put both cards up on a board. You could could laminate matching cards back to back so kids can flip back and forth to learn the meaning of cards. You could sort them yourself and have kids come up with idiom definitions. Kids could match the cards themselves. You could use a matching game as an assessment. Really, your options are endless.

Making these cards makes me so happy because they are a tool that will make life easier for teachers and give students a positive experience mastering a standard. Teaching and learning are both so hard, I want to support everyone any way I can.

There are 21 idioms in the set. If you would like to purchase the cards, you can do so at Teachers pay Teachers. I will list it on Teacher's Notebook soon.

If printing all this color is a challenge, I can also mail you the pictures printed on cardstock if you order it as a hard good. It is only $1 more plus shipping.

Biomes Sorting Cards

Sorting is such a valuable educational tool that (I believe) isn't used enough in schools today. Kids naturally start sorting at a young age because humans have an innate need to bring order to our world. Sorting is a way to make sense out of chaos.

Sorting also allows us to examine relationships between objects and ideas. It allows us to dig deeper into our understanding of a topic. Plus, sorting is actually really fun - especially when you get to do it with a friend.

With all of these benefits, why wouldn't we use sorting in school?

I realize that not every is familiar with the power of sorting, so I decided to make a few videos to show how the sorting works. I grabbed one of my daughters and her friend to help me. I am not kidding you, they loved it. They loved it so much they wouldn't stop sorting when I needed to end the video. 

This is not promotional talk here. They were having so much fun. It made me think of amazing it would be to have an entire classroom of kids this engaged with their work. 

I think one part of sorting that is important for kids, especially kids who typically struggle in school, is that it doesn't require them to write. You can write to record your thinking, but you don't have to. This takes away a huge barrier for a lot of kids. It creates a level playing field where everyone can have fun and feel successful.

Can you tell I love sorting?

Anyway, the video below is all about biomes. I have taught biomes for so many years! I have reading passages in my stores which I love, but nothing has been as fun for kids as these sorting cards.

So, the girls only sorted two biomes, but there are actually 7 biomes in the sorting set. You get cards for:

1. Freshwater Aquatic

2. Marine

3. Desert

4. Grasslands

5. Rainforest

6. Tundra

7. Taiga

Each biome has two environment pictures, a description of the biome, 3 animal cards, and 3 plant cards. You also get pictures of my sorts as an "answer key", but of course, there are different sorts that could still make sense. 

That is another part of sorting that I love. There are so many correct answers that require kids to explain their thinking.

Can you tell that I love sorting?! Oh, and I love biomes!