Rich Learning Tasks

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Questions to facilitate the learning

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Were you able to make one group brown things? Were your other two groups based on colour?

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Were you able to make one group pants? Why or why not?

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Could you or did you use a group that was not about colour and not about whether it was a hat or shirt

or pants or coat?

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Choose one of your sorts. What extra item might you include in each group that would not ruin the

sorting rule?

Scaffolding the learning

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Could one of the groups be yellow things? Why or why not?

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What other things make the pictures different?

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What could the pants go with?

What’s the point of this task?

This task has a problem-solving element in requiring students to create certain size groupings as a result

of the sort. A student cannot just randomly create categories, but has to think more carefully about what

the possibilities could be. He or she also has to think more broadly so that what might be perceived as

separate categories (such as pants and hats or yellow things and green things) could go together.

Extending the learning

Students might be asked to think about all the possible group sizes (besides 4-3-3) there could be.

Split Them Up

Data