How Sweet it is to Be Sorted by You

I’ve got a new favorite unit. Every year when our sorting unit comes up I try to think of ways to keep it interesting with my first graders. Last year one of my coworkers jokingly mentioned that we could sort with Oreos. Because of my deep love for the cookies, I ran with the idea!

In Virginia we have to sort by size, shape, color and thickness. Luckily, Oreos can be used for all of these! I bought both chocolate and golden Oreos of the regular, mini, and thin varieties. I also snagged Oreo Thin Bites and Nabisco’s Oreo Cookie 100 calorie packs (because they’re shaped like hexagons!). I made packs for my students that contained one of each kind of cookie and then called out various ways for them to sort. (Please excuse the messy picture. I took it before I realized I'd write a post about it.)

**Update- I cannot find the 100 calorie packs anywhere this year!! I'm going to grab some chocolate teddy grahams to have a different shape instead.

We started off sorting by one trait and used this chart to keep things organized. Then the students flipped it over and we sorted by two traits. For this, we just made neat piles on the blank back of the paper.

It was a pretty sweet lesson if I do say so myself. ;)