Category Sorting Box — Picture Cards

A box with a slot for each category and a deck of picture cards — vehicles, animals, aircraft and so on. Your child looks at a card, decides which group it belongs to, and posts it into that slot. The deck works through until every card has been sorted.

How you play

1. Set the box down and spread the cards face up.
2. Take one card and look at what is on it.
3. Decide which group it belongs to.
4. Post it into the matching slot on the box.
5. Carry on until every card has been sorted.

What it builds

• Classifying — seeing what a group of things has in common
• Vocabulary, because each category has to be named to be used
• Reasoning about why a card belongs in one group and not another
• Working a deck through to the end rather than stopping halfway

Three ways to play it

• Ask why after each card, so the reason gets said out loud
• Pull one card from each group and lay them out as a matching game
• Sort by something else entirely — colour, or size — to show that groups can change

The details

• Ages: 3–6 years