Sorting Activities for Teachers
Download printable sorting activities to help your elementary students practice grouping different items into categories.
With activities aligned with the Common Core curriculum and editable options, this teacher resource collection is stocked with hundreds of resources perfect for elementary and middle school teachers,
Each sorting and grouping resource in this teaching resource collection has been created by a teacher, and each resource has undergone a rigorous review by the teachers on the Teach Starter team to ensure it's ready to download and use in your classroom.
Choose from sorting activities for math, ELA, science or social studies with printable and digital options available! This collection also includes sorting activities that can be used for whole class, group or independent tasks.
Curious about how our teacher team uses sorting activities to keep kids engaged and make learning more fun? Read on for a primer!
What Are Sorting Activities?
Let's start with a definition. When we talk about sorting activities at Teach Starter, we're referring to hands-on activities for students that require them to identify, sort, and group different items into alike categories.
This tests recognition and helps students develop their problem-solving skills.
Are you mostly familiar with sorting activities for preschool or kindergarten? We have those, but you'll also find activities designed for older students from 1st and 2nd grade all the way up through 5th and 6th grade.
The goal is to strengthen students' comparison skills and deepening their understanding of a particular topic by sorting cards, playing games and often matching items.
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Percent Decimal Fraction Worksheet
Download this percent decimal fraction worksheet to give your students hands-on practice matching fraction, decimal, and percent equivalents.
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Christmas Writing Center - Types of Sentences for 2nd Grade
Help your students answer “What Type of Sentence Is This?’ with a printable Christmas sorting activity on the 4 types of sentences.
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Building Words with Suffixes Sorting Activity
Build words by matching the root word to suffixes, recording the new words on the answer sheet.
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Literary Elements Fairy Tale Sorting Activity
Explore literary elements with this fairy tale sorting activity in the shape of a castle.
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Christmas Noun Sorting Game - Singular & Plural
Bring festive fun into your 1st and 2nd grade ELA lessons with this Christmas noun sorting activity!
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How Seasons Affect Plants and Animals Sorting Activity
Set up this sorting activity in your classroom to teach students how the seasons affect plants and animals by categorizing them.
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Animals and Their Habitats - Sorting Activity
Discover the habitats that are home to Earth’s wildlife with a printable animal habitat sorting activity.
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Forms of Energy Sorting Activity
Help students identify the different forms of energy with this set of 24 sorting cards.
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Subject Verb Agreement Sentences Sort
Get your students sorting subject-verb agreement sentences quickly and effectively with this engaging hands-on activity.
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Text Structures Sorting Activity
A set of 24 text structure cards to use in a sorting or scoot activity.
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Thermal Energy Transfer Sorting Activity
Learn about conduction, convection, and radiation with this set of 24 sorting cards.
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Base Word Sorting Activity
Use this Base Word Sorting activity to help students sort words based on their root words.
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Fiction and Nonfiction Sorting Cards
Explore fiction and nonfiction book features with this sorting activity.
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Sentence Building Cards and Mat
Use these Sentence Building Cards with Mat to explore the main features of a simple sentence with your Kinder students.
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Big Problem or Little Problem? – Sorting Activity
Use our Big Problem vs. Little Problem activity cards and worksheets to help your students learn to manage peer relationships in the classroom.
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Gingerbread Man Activity - Story Sequencing Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of Gingerbread Man Sequencing Cards.
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Time Sort - Morning, Afternoon & Evening Activity
Help your students learn about different times of day (morning, afternoon, and evening) with a Times of Day Sorting activity.
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Santa's Syllable Sort - Christmas Reading Center
Help students practice breaking words into syllables with a Christmas literacy center.
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Skip Counting by 1, 2, 5 and 10 Sorting Activity
Set up this sorting activity as a small group or rotation task for your students to practise thier skip counting skills.
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Plant Life Cycle Sorting Activity
Help your students identify the stages in a plant’s life cycle with a sorting activity..
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Dictionary Sorting Game
Get students in the habit of researching with our dictionary activity that helps learners match a word to its definition and part of speech.
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Building Words with Prefixes Sorting Activity
Build words by matching the root word to prefixes, recording the new words on the answer sheet.
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Mixtures and Solutions Sort
Distinguish between mixtures and solutions with this 24-card sorting activity.
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Prime and Composite Number Sort
Identify prime and composite numbers by sorting 30 number cards into their proper category.
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Things I Can and Cannot Control – Sorting Activity
Help students identify things in life they can and cannot control with this sorting activity.
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Goods and Services Sorting Activity
Identify things as either "goods" or "services" by looking at 20 examples and sorting them into their appropriate category.
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5 Text Structures Sorting Cards
A set of 24 sorting cards to practice identifying the five different text structures.
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Food Choices Sorting Activity
A sorting activity to help students recognize healthy and unhealthy foods.
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Alliteration Sorting by Beginning Sound Activity
Explore beginning sounds and alliteration with this engaging and age-appropriate picture sort activity—perfect for your phonics and early literacy lessons.
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Simple Machines Sorting Activity
A fun sorting activity to use in the classroom when learning about simple machines and how they work.
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Parallel and Perpendicular Lines Game — Sorting Activity
Play this parallel and perpendicular lines game in your classroom to give students practice sorting lines into intersecting, parallel, or perpendicular line categories.
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Ordering Large Numbers Sorting Activity
Practice ordering large numbers with this easy-to-prepare sorting activity.