Mathematical Concepts
Sorting by type!
Children in nursery need to understand and apply the mathematical concept of sorting items by type. Sorting involves finding things that are the same, or alike, and grouping them by specific traits or attributes. For example, different animals can be grouped based on their colour or type of animal. You can classify anything, including blocks, leaves, plates, or toy cars.
A great play based activity to teach sorting by type is to have a selection of different animals such as dogs, tigers, cows, snails, chickens and sheep and putting all of the same animals together. Once completed, you can then extend this activity and challenge your child by asking them to sort the animals by how many legs they have (if any) or where the animals live e.g. the farm, the jungle, the garden etc.
Below are two pictures of a child who had successfully sorted the jungle animals elephant, gorilla and zebra by type.
