Hands-On Sorting in Algebra 1

This year my school implemented PDP’s (or Professional Development Plans). What can I do to develop professionally that will make me a better teacher? Well part of what will make me a better teacher is if I teach my students in a way that jives with them. I’m not saying to change what you do every day, but adding in some activities that are hands-on or out of the norm will totally get them engaged – which can be really hard in math. So I decided that this was one of my goals for my PDP – hands-on learning in the Algebra 1 classroom. It isn’t easy to come up with hands-on activities for the high school math classroom, but sorts are one that I have had a lot of success with in my classroom this year.

Y’all. Sorting is so fun and hands on. It does take a little prep to cut the squares out (&& laminate if you want to reuse them), but there are ways to cut down on this. Sometimes I just throw the cards up in a document on the white board and have students create their own sort on a piece of paper and write down the correct equations/numbers under the correct category. Sometimes I have them cut them out and sort themselves, while other times I have it prepped and ready and laminated for lots of years of use.

I have whipped up these sort mats and then have students sort the cards into all kinds of things – parallel and perpendicular slopes/lines, slope intercept or point slope form, properties of numbers, arithmetic or geometric sequence and so on. I love watching them get their hands moving and think through all of the different problems that are cut out. These typically don’t take long (and some are always done very quickly), but it is a great refresher the day after you teach a topic, or a great way to review for a test or quiz.

After the students are done, I throw the answer key up on the board and we always discuss which ones they had sorted into the wrong category and why they ended up there. This really allows us to troubleshoot the things that get students tripped up between forms, equations and numbers. They also tell me that they remember the reasons that they belong in another category better when we do these before assessments.

Do you use something like this in your classroom? What kind of topics do you think you could use a sort for in your classroom?

Happy Sorting,

Hilary

If you’re interested in checking out my Algebra 1 sorts, click here.