Wanda Ocasio of Inter-American School saw the opportunity to use a Three Bears sorting lesson to investigate her preschoolers’ understanding of sorting, as well as explore this Big Idea in the context of a multilingual environment. Ms. Ocasio teaches in a dual language class – 80 percent of her instruction is in Spanish and 20 percent in English. She hoped to use the familiarity of the Three Bears story to examine her students’ use of language, problem solving skills, and teamwork while also addressing the obstacles that come with teaching bilingual children.

Ms. Ocasio had two primary goals. In the large group setting, she wanted to see if the children could sort a collection of household objects by the attributes of type of object and size. In the small group setting, Ms. Ocasio wanted to analyze the children’s ability to follow directions and identify the objects in English. It is important to help dual language learners understand math language in both their home language and in English. She hoped that the small group setting would give the children the opportunity to express themselves more freely as they think about expressing math vocabulary in English.

“I want to allow different groups of children to work together,” Ms. Ocasio said. “[I want to] mix the group of children that normally do not play together – boy, girl, English-dominant, Spanish-dominant, more expressive with less expressive.”

Two things Ms. Ocasio would add for future uses of the activity would be encouraging the children to sort sets by a third attribute and including the materials in the dramatic play area for further exploration.

Sorting things into categories is one of the ways mathematics enters into our daily life. At “clean-up time,” children discover that forks and knives belong in one place, plates belong somewhere else, and glasses and cups belong in yet another place. As children and adults talk about what makes one set of things go together and why other things belong elsewhere, they are doing important talking… and thinking. Talking about attributes and qualities such as size, shape, texture, and color encourages children to look more closely at things. This also is a great way to develop children’s vocabulary.

Sort It Out! by Barbara Mariconda provides a great model for incorporating math into everyday activities. This brightly colored picture book shows Packy the Pack Rat trying to obey his mother’s order to put away all the treasures he has collected.

The Button Box by Margarette S. Reid could launch another exploration of a collection many teachers may have in their sewing closet. In this story, a little boy finds all kinds of stories in his grandmother’s collection of buttons. Grandma’s Button Box by Linda Williams Aber uses another approach. In this book, Kelly and her cousins help Grandma sort the buttons that spilled when Kelly accidentally knocked over the box.

All of these provide great entry points for exploring sets and sorting in everyday life. Math is, in fact, all around us.

A child attempts to duplicate a pattern using colored blocks.

Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.

A child makes patterns using keys.

Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.

A kindergartner finds out how many people exited a bus at a bus stop.

Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.

A student takes a look at a pattern of blocks of increasing quantity.

Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children’s mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments.