Sort into groups

What it looks like when your child can do it

• — Given a basket of clean laundry, your child sorts it into socks, shirts and towels and can say why each piece went where it did.
• — Your child checks each item against the rule before placing it, instead of going by what looks about right.
• — When an item fits no group, your child says so rather than forcing it into one.

How to teach it at the kitchen table

1. 01

   Start with real things and a named rule

   Tip the silverware drawer onto a towel, butter knives only. Name the groups out loud, forks, spoons and knives, and let your child place each piece. Objects you can move let your child see the groups.

2. 02

   Sort the same pile a second way

   Mix it back up and sort by a new rule, like metal handle or plastic handle. The same pile can be sorted many ways, and the rule decides where each thing goes.

3. 03

   Ask why for every item

   After each placement, ask why it goes there. The reason should name the rule: "It goes with the spoons because it has a bowl on the end."

4. 04

   Move from things to words

   Write items on slips of paper and sort them into labeled columns. The book sorts written lists this way, so practice with words once objects feel settled.

5. 05

   Leave room for does not fit

   Mix in one item that fits no group. A child who says it belongs nowhere is following the rule, which is the whole point.

You will need: The silverware drawer or a laundry basket · Slips of paper and a pencil · A handful of coins

Try it together

1. Try 1

   Write these on slips of paper: apple, carrot, banana, potato, grape, onion. Ask your child to sort them into Fruit and Vegetable.

   Listen for  Fruit: apple, banana, grape. Vegetable: carrot, potato, onion. Listen for a reason on each one.

2. Try 2

   Use the same six slips and give a new rule: grows under the ground, or grows above it.

   Listen for  Under the ground: carrot, potato, onion. Above it: apple, banana, grape. Same slips, new rule, new groups.

3. Try 3

   Say: we want to find out if a bigger sail makes a toy boat cross the bathtub faster. Sort these into The one we change and Kept the same: the size of the sail, which boat we use, how deep the water is, the fan setting.

   Listen for  The one we change: the size of the sail. Kept the same: the boat, the depth of the water, the fan setting. Only one item goes in the first group.

4. Try 4

   Hand your child a pile of coins to sort into pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, with one button mixed in.

   Listen for  Four coin groups, and the button set aside. Watch whether your child notices the button fits none of the groups.

Watch for

• — Changing the rule partway through, sorting the first few items by color and the rest by size. Ask what the rule is before each item.

If it is not there yet

• — Sort into only two groups with a rule your child can see, like red and not red, before trying three or four groups.
• — Say the rule out loud together before each item goes down, so the rule does the deciding.

A few days of this is normal, and it is time well spent. The lesson will still be there, and it will go faster.

Where this skill comes up

• How Scientists Actually Find Out · Lesson 14

  The One Thing You Change

  Needs it because your child sorts a list of factors into the one being changed and the ones that are not.