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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Uses of Materials Sorting Activity
Explore the materials objects are made of with a fun sorting activity for students.
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Solids, Liquids, and Gases – Sorting Activity
Use a hands-on States of Matter sorting activity to help students identify solids, liquids, and gases.
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Movement of Animals Sorting Activity
Spark discussion among your students about how animals move with a fun set of animal locomotion picture cards.
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Day or Night Sorting Activity
Help your little learners understand and apply the concepts of day and night with this fun sorting activity.
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Parts of Speech Word Cards Sorting Activity
Engage your students with this parts of speech group activity where they sort 112 word cards into categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, coordinating conjunctions or prepositions).
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Hansel and Gretel Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for Hansel and Gretel.
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3 Billy Goats Gruff Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for 3 Billy Goats Gruff.
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Three Little Pigs Retelling Activity Cards
Teach your students about retelling with this set of sequencing cards for The Three Little Pigs.
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Classifying Angles – 4th Grade Sorting Activity
Help students recognize different types of angles in everyday life with this hands-on sorting activity.
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Classifying Triangles (By Angles) – 4th Grade Math Activity
Play this sorting game when learning how to classify triangles according to their internal angles.
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Odd and Even Numbers Sorting Activity
Identify and sort 2- and 3-digit numbers into odd and even categories.
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Build a Food Chain - Sorting Activity
Create food chains for a variety of ecosystems with this hands-on, student-centered activity.
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Affixes Word Building Puzzle Activity
Build words with affixes with a pack of printable word-building puzzles.
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Plant Vocabulary Words - Matching Activity
Help students become familiar with vocabulary related to plants with a hands-on matching game.
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Main Idea or Supporting Detail – Sorting Activity
An activity for students to determine which of 2 related facts is a main idea and which is a supporting detail.
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Word Building Bricks - Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots Activity
Build, read and write multi-syllable words using prefixes, suffixes, and base words with a fun word-building literacy activity.
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Number Neighborhood - Printable Number Line Sequencing Cards
Print a set of colorful numbered houses to use for skip counting, ordering, and comparing numbers.
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Man-made vs. Natural Features - Sorting Activity
Identify the natural and human features of environments with this sorting activity.
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North American Indigenous People - Fact Sorting Worksheet
Review information learned about the indigenous people in the different regions of North America with a cut-and-paste worksheet.
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Famous Colonists Cut and Paste Worksheet
Show what you know about famous American colonists with a cut-and-paste Colonial Americans worksheet.
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Animal Classification Sort
Determine if an animal is an amphibian, reptile, mammal, or bird with this sorting activity.
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Singular and Plural Possessives Task Cards
Practice writing phrases using the correct singular or plural possessive noun with a set of task cards.
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Snowflake Syllables - Winter Reading Center
Help students practice breaking words into syllables and identifying open and closed syllables with a winter literacy center.
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Numerical Expressions Sort!
Solve and sort numerical expressions according to different categories with this sorting activity.
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Cut and Paste: Characteristics of Communities
Identify characteristics of the different types of communities (urban, rural, suburban) with a cut-and-paste sorting worksheet.
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Good Citizens Around Town Sorting Activity
Discover how to be a good citizen at home, school, and community with citizenship for kids sorting activity.
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Long Ago, Now, or In the Future Sort
Help your students develop a sense of history and how life, transportation, and communications have changed over time.
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Past, Present, and Future Verb Tense Sentence Sort
Identify sentences written in past, present, and future tense with task cards designed for primary grades.
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Punctuation in a Pouch - End Punctuation Sorting Center
A fun, marsupial-themed activity to help your students with editing and punctuation.
- Free Plan
Line and Feeling Sorting Activity - Primary Grades
A fun sorting activity for students to explore interpretation of line in visual art.
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Butterfly Life Cycle Sort
Help your students concrete their understanding of life cycles with this interactive game.
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Seasons Sorting Activity
Teach students in K-2 the proper clothing, activities, and objects for different types of weather with this four seasons activity.