We know that families and parents are often looking for fun activities to keep their children engaged and learning at home. To support parents with this, we have created a sorting activity that you can print out and use at home!
Here’s how you can set up the activity at home:
- Use this link to download and print the activity book
- Cut out the individual items at the end of the PDF (e.g., animals, tools, vehicles, etc.)
- Stack the rest of the pages and fold them in half to make a book
- Now you’re ready to start! Let your child flip through the book and choose a page that’s interesting to them, then put out some items to sort.
- Set the scene like a story by creating a fun, immersive scenario. For example: “Oh no! The zoo is missing its animals, and the cars can’t park because the lot is too full! We need your help to find everything and put it in the right place!”.
- First, model what to do while using dramatic gestures and voices to bring each scenario to life. Then your child can try sorting items in the right places.
- Continue working through the book, taking turns with your child and providing support when needed. Remember to stay animated to keep the activity fun and engaging!
Variations in Play
You can integrate additional learning opportunities into this activity if you wish by trying out the following variations:
- Practice matching by printing duplicates of the items. Model the first few rounds to show your child what to do and then give them a turn to try!
- Responding to WH questions. For example, you can ask questions like “where does a fish live?”, “what animal makes a “sss” sound?”, “what one do we use to drive?”.
- Responding to yes/no questions. You can be silly with this one to get some laughs! For example, ask if an animal is a vehicle.
- Requesting items. You can work on promoting various forms of communication, such as pointing or using a vocalization to make a request (e.g., “do you want the lion or the snake?”).
Why Is Learning How To Sort Items By Category Important?
- Cognitive Development
- Organizing Information: Categorization helps the brain process and organize information, making it easier to understand relationships and differences between items. This skill supports memory and reasoning.
- Problem-Solving: Sorting builds problem-solving skills by teaching children how to group items logically based on shared attributes.
- Language Development
- Vocabulary Building: Sorting by category introduces children to descriptive language (e.g., color, shape, size) and relational words (e.g., “same,” “different”).
- Understanding Categories: It teaches the understanding of what categories and functional groups are, like “animals,” “fruits,” or “tools,” which are critical for communication and comprehension.
- Academic Readiness
- Numeracy Skills: Sorting is a precursor to understanding patterns, sets, and classification.
- Reading Skills: Categorization enhances the ability to recognize patterns in letters, words, and sounds.
- Executive Functioning
- Decision-Making: Sorting requires identifying criteria for grouping, which supports decision-making and planning skills.
- Attention and Focus: The task of sorting encourages sustained attention and the ability to focus on specific details.
- Practical Life Skills
- Everyday Organization: Sorting skills are necessary for tasks like tidying toys, separating laundry, or organizing groceries.
- Independence: The ability to categorize items helps individuals make sense of their environment and engage in daily routines efficiently.
We hope that you and your child enjoy this activity! If you are looking for more free activity resources and ideas, you can find more on our blog. We have tracing activities to work on fine motor skills, rainbow bingo to work on learning colours, a DIY self-portrait collage for a fun and easy craft, and more!
