Activities for teaching sorting skills in Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

Sorting Activities for Preschool

Activities and ideas for teaching sorting skills in preschool, pre-k, or kindergarten classrooms. Teach children to sort using various attributes.

Sorting is a foundational math skill for preschoolers. It can take months or even an entire school year for young children begin to understand the concept of sorting and the various ways to sort. For this reason it is important to provide your students with plenty of sorting practice all year long.

Objective: Sort, classify, and order objects by size, shape, color, and a variety of other attributes.

Books about Sorting

Using Music to Teach Sorting

I routinely use songs to help reinforce math skills in my classroom. I have used HeidiSongs Musical Math DVD with great success in my classroom. The Musical Math DVD has a specific song for teaching sorting that is very effective. HeidiSongs work because they use a multi-sensory approach which adds movement to each song so the students sing the song and move at the same time. When combined, these strategies provide a more meaningful experience that will promote retention of the concept being taught.

Sorting Activities

Have you seen these sectioned chip and dip trays at the dollar store? They have so many uses in the early childhood classroom!

Sorting by Color

You can easily use these trays to sort objects by color into each section. You don’t have to have the fancy, colorful manipulatives from the teacher store to do this activity. Your kids will enjoy sorting common items like pom poms, buttons, or even paint chips into the sections. The possibilities for sorting with chip and dip trays are really endless.

Add a pair of tweezers or tongs and invite your little learners to use them to pick up and transfer the manipulatives into the tray. Now you’re teaching sorting while also developing those important fine motor skills at the same time – it’s a win-win!