Sorts - for All Sorts

Word Work Edition

A major accomplishment of the first grade teachers has been to make SMART Notebook activities to correspond to each topic of their word work lessons. The activities are for the students to use on their own after each lesson is taught. Some of the digitized activities replace the need for paper copies. For example, a common paper activity is to cut out the words from one piece of paper and then glue them onto another piece of paper. Word sorts have been easily incorporated into each Notebook file that was created. Here are directions on how to make a word sort in Notebook as well as a few other ways to make or find them.

Software

SMART Notebook: If you own a SMART Board, you have unlimited licenses to the Notebook software. In notebook, it is possible to make a rudimentary sort, but why not upgrade it using templates from the Lesson Activity Toolkit? These include the option to self-grade the student’s work. When the student has completed the sort, the student can click on “check” to see how well he or she did. The Toolkit can be found by clicking on the gallery tab on the side and choosing the Lesson Activity Toolkit folder. In the Activities folder there are two options: category sort image and category sort text. Once an activity is dragged onto the page, click on the “edit” button on the activity to insert the words or images. With the above mentioned sorts the words or images stay on the page as they are sorted. There is another possible way to structure the sorting process by using the vortex sorts that provide immediate feedback as each word or image is placed in a category. A new version of Notebook has been recently released, and I look forward exploring all of its new possibilities!

  

More information on The Lesson Activity Toolkit

Presentation Software: A program like PowerPoint or Keynote could be used in a similar manner to make a table and a bank of words to use. A sort created in one of these programs is not self-grading and requires the teacher to check the students’ work.

Websites

Create Your Own Word Sort: Use this website to make a word sort with up to four categories and the possibility to add a “check” option. The final sort is saved as a webpage on your computer and distributed to the students as a file. After students complete the sort, it can be saved as an image file or printed out.

Word Family Sort Short Vowels: Choose a short vowel word family and sort the given words. This is not self-grading.

iPad Apps

Beginning Sounds Interactive Game: Sort the pictures based on their beginning sounds. This is great for use with Kindergarteners. ($0.99)