Ceareal Sort Reflection

My friend Lorri is an intern in second grade. She has let me come to her class to help out. She let me prepare a lesson on sorting to get the children ready for spelling sorts. I haven't been able to sleep and thoughts of what to do next time are yelling at me to remember them. Here is a run down of the lesson.

Success: I began by asking the students to stand by their desks. Lori says, "One, stand up. Two chairs in. Three, sit at the rug." I used this routine and said, "One, stand up. Two, chairs in. Touch your shoulders, touch your knees, look at me. Please come silently and join me on the rug." they sat and were ready to listen.

Differentiation opportunity: I began by telling them we were going to sort. I asked, "if you have done any sorting activities before put your hands on your shoulders. If sorting is new to you put your hands on your knees." One student H.L. put her hands on her knees. I demonstrated sorting colored linking cubes. Then i asked the students if the cubes were different. They said yes they are different colors. Then I asked if they were the same. Most said no, but S.T. said yes. I asked her if she could tell the class how they were the same. She said that they were the same shape. We decided that if they cubes were sorted by color there would be four categories, but if we sorted by shape there would only be one category. At this point I had the children go back to their desks, wipe them with disinfectant wipes and apply hand sanitizer. Then I passed out paper and directed the folding of it into columns for separating categories. Next time I will skip the paper--took too much time and was confusing since my demonstration didn't include columns. I gave instructions for each partner to share a dish of cereal and asked them to begin sorting. At this point I wish I had worked a few minutes with H.L. letting her sort the cubes with me since she was the only student who indicated it was her first experience. The students were anxious about dividing up the cereal between partners since each twosome had one dish and two papers. H.L. said she didn't know what to do. I called the students attention to the front, apologized for not giving them good enough instructions, asked them to return all the cereal to the bowls and put one paper away. Each partnership would work together to sort the cereal on one paper. H.L. seemed to do much better when working with her partner.

Sharing and assesment: Each partnership shared thier categories. I think the class understands that a group of items can be sorted by different rules (eg. color or shape), and that the items can be sorted by the same rule and have different categories.

Most partnerships sorted by shape- only one group had a boat shape category, another had a frog-like shape category (for puffed wheat)

A few groups sorted by color- one pair of children had much debate over which were tan and which were brown.

One group sorted by smell.

At this point I should have worked again with H.L., asking her about her sort and seeing if she could think of another way to sort the cereal and asking her to show me.

Things to do different next time:
Omit paper columns or use them during demonstration. (if time is an issue omit)
Plan on giving each student cereal in a cupcake paper. Give only 3-5 pieces of each varriety.
Have students sort then share thier sort with a partner.
(allow to consult each other, "talk to your buddy if you need to.")
Plan for time to do multiple sorts.
Take better advantage of differentiation oportunities.

Overall I think the lesson was a success. Thanks for letting me practice on your class Lorri!