Early Childhood Resources- Sorting and Classifying

Goal: Celebrate the gifts of trees

Instructions:

• What do trees do for us? How are trees important to our everyday lives? Trees provide many things for us that we use on a daily basis. (Ask what kinds of things we use made from wood and paper, and what kinds of food comes from trees.)

• You have three poster boards – one labeled food, one wood, and one paper. The group to set up this center should hang the poster boards.

• Using the pictures provided in the file folders, decide in your group where each picture should go. Example, the apples would go on the food board. Taking turns, sort all the items and add them to the appropriate board.

• You may expand the activity by finding additional pictures in magazines, cut them out and tape them on the appropriate board. You can also use dry erase markers to draw pictures on the laminated boards.

• When your group completes the activity, remove the pictures from the board and put them back I the folders for the next group. This is an adaptation to the activity found in the guide. What is the “stuff” on the back of the pictures? The sticky glue is Aileen’s Tack-It-Over-and Over glue available from Michael’s, JoAnns, or online. A little dab will do you. I apply (with an old paint brush that I can toss afterward) a very thin coat on the middle of the item so the children can get their little fingers under the edge to manipulate the item. The items will stick to painted concrete walls, white boards, and other laminated surfaces without damaging them. This does not work well with contact paper.

Materials:

• Three laminated posters

• Tape

• Three laminated folders with assorted pictures.

• Magazines

• Scissors