• Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Patricia NewmanPatricia Newman
Sibert Honor Children's Book Author & Environmentalist
  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Sorting - Marco spread 3

LitLinks: The math and science of sorting helps kids make sense of the world

March 24, 2021 LitLinks, LitLinks-Grade 3-5, LitLinks-Grade K-2 No Comments
LitLinks Logo-1 (2)

GUEST BLOGGER SARA LEVINE


Cover The Animals Would Not Sleep!

In THE ANIMALS WOULD NOT SLEEP, Marco must put away his vast collection of stuffed animals at bedtime. But the animals will not cooperate. They are not happy with the various sorting categories this young scientist creates. They leap, fly and slither out of their bins. Some grow overtired and begin to cry. Can Marco sort his animals in a way that satisfies his scientific and mathematical mind while also taking care of the emotional needs of his stuffies?

The Storytelling Math series (Charlesbridge Publishing) features math in fictional stories that celebrate diversity. My book focuses on the key math and science concept of sorting. How are things different and how are they the same?

The activities I suggest below will help children to develop an understanding of this sorting concept as they learn to make sense of the world.

Sorting using Marco’s categories

Collect a pile of stuffed or plastic animals (or use pictures of animals). Ask children to sort them into the categories Marco uses in the book. Providing three labeled baskets or bins will make the activity extra fun. Marco sorts the animals by three different groupings: size, method of locomotion, and by color.

  • Small, Medium and Large
  • Flying Animals, Swimming Animals, Animals that Move on Land
  • Mostly Brown, Black and White, Colors of the Rainbow

If it doesn’t arise organically, be sure to point out that some animals don’t fit easily into these categories. For example a frog both walks on land and swims. Another animal might not easily fit into the medium or large group but fall somewhere between the two. Categories are just our way of organizing things, but explain that it’s not possible to make everything fit. The exceptions are exciting entryways into discussion with children.

Collect a pile of random objects such as toys, office supplies, tools, utensils, recycling or leaves found on a nature walk. Create categories similar to Marco’s, and sort the objects into those two or three categories. Some categories that work well include:

  • what the object is made of (plastic, wood, metal, other)
  • the weight of the object (heavy or light or in between)
  • the function (things I’d use at in the classroom, things I’d use for eating, toys, etc)

Begin the activity by suggesting some categories, and then invite children to create their own categories. Sort and then discuss. It’s often useful to have a category called “things that don’t fit into any of the categories.”

Sorting - Marco spread 4
From The Animals Would Not Sleep by Sara Levine (Charlesbridge)

Guess the category

Arrange a group of objects into two piles by category and have the child guess what the category is. For example, put all of the big objects in one pile and the small ones in the other. Once they have mastered this, invite children to create the piles and challenge you to guess the categories. Be creative here. If you are doing this with your own child, for example, you might divide the objects into Toys Grandma Gave You and Toys Grandma Didn’t Give You. Being silly and keeping the activity relevant to the individual kid keeps math engaging and fun.

Sorting using science

This time, use the real scientific categories that are used to group animals and discussed in the back matter of the book. Depending on the age and knowledge base of the child, the categories can be simple or more complex. Young children can divide their stuffed animals up into vertebrates (animals with bones) and invertebrates (animals without bones). For children who are ready to learn more, the vertebrates can be divided further into Mammals, Birds, Fish, Amphibians and Reptiles.


Sara Levine photo

Sara Levine is an educator, veterinarian and award-winning STEM writer. Her picture books, which include Bone by Bone, Tooth by Tooth, Flower Talk and The Animals Would Not Sleep!, have received theAAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize, the Beehive Book Award, the Cook Prize Honor and the Mathical Book Prize. http://www.saralevinebooks.com/, @saraclevine (twitter) @saralevinebooks (instagram)


Click for more LITLINKS STEM + Literacy activities

Tags: STEM+Literacy
No Comments
Share
0

You also might be interested in

ISS Sunrise

LitLinks: Nature – the ultimate transformer

Feb 9, 2022

GUEST BLOGGER CYNTHIA ARGENTINE Have you ever seen transformer toys?[...]

Python image

LitLinks: Nonfiction picture book images = storytelling elements

Jun 3, 2020

GUEST BLOGGER MARTA MAGELLAN Images in nonfiction picture books are[...]

image 2 Binney with flowers spread

LitLinks: Color Science, Inventions and Language Arts with THE CRAYON MAN: THE TRUE STORY OF THE INVENTION OF CRAYOLA CRAYONS

Jul 24, 2019

GUEST BLOGGER: NATASCHA BIEBOW The Crayon Man: The True Story[...]

Leave a Reply

Your email is safe with me.
Cancel Reply

Click the logo to have LitLinks delivered to your inbox

LitLinks Logo-2022

Author Visits

https://youtu.be/ziN0UrqaDYI

Post Categories:

Blog Archive

Top Posts

LitLinks: How to share our ocean connections with kids and teens

LitLinks: Let’s learn to decode photos in STEM nonfiction

LitLinks: How Elephants Can Make Your Sound Unit ROAR!

LitLinks: Easy ways to build students’ science communication skills

Proof that science connects kids to the larger world

Recent Comments

  • Annie Lynn on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science My pleasure! We are stronger together!✌🏽💖🎶🔬📚🌻
  • Patricia Newman on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science Thank you for putting the A in STEM, Annie!
  • Annie Lynn on LitLinks: Best practices for making connections between kidlit and science As usual, this was a fantastic, helpful, detailed post that…

I also write for STEM Tuesday

STEM Tuesday
Empowering young readers to act

Latest Blog Posts

  • LitLinks: An easy lesson to help students write a desert rap
    LitLinks: An easy lesson to help students write a desert rap
  • LitLinks: 5 ways to use nonfiction kidlit in the classroom
    LitLinks: 5 ways to use nonfiction kidlit in the classroom

What's happening on Twitter

  • It's #internationdayofthegirl 🥳 Celebrate #girlpower w books abt ♀️ #scientists #WomenInSTEM #scicomm #STEM…  http://t.co/ALmXSCYDrs 
  • 5 months ago
  • RT  @mstewartscience : Love seeing all those smiling faces!
  • 5 months ago

Follow @PatriciaNewman

Action Shots

Check out the STEM Tuesday Blog

© 2023 — Patricia Newman

  • Home
  • Books
    • A River’s Gifts: The Mighty Elwha River Reborn
    • Planet Ocean
    • Eavesdropping on Elephants
    • Neema’s Reason To Smile
    • Zoo Scientists to the Rescue
    • Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem
    • Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
    • Ebola: Fears and Facts
    • Jingle the Brass
    • Nugget on the Flight Deck
    • Surviving Animal Attacks
    • Elite Operations series
    • Energy Lab series
    • QuickReads Fluency Library
    • Books for English language-learners
    • Writers write all kinds of things
  • Author Visit Programs
    • FAQs
    • Calendar
  • Blog
  • Educator Resources
    • STEM + Literacy Activities
    • LitLinks
    • Teacher Guides
    • KidLit creators who make kids want to read
  • Writer Resources
    • Manuscript or Proposal Critiques
  • Who is Patricia Newman?
  • Contact
    • Stay In Touch
Prev Next