During math inquiry, KZE students explored ways to classify (sort) objects into different categories. Students took off their shoes and Mrs Zurfluh sorted the shoes into various groups. The children identified why they thought the shoes were in the groups eg Velcro, laces and slip on shoes.
Then students sorted their own shoes into 3 different groups of their own choice and explained the reasons why they had put their shoes into 1 of the 3 groups.
The first group, children reasoned that:
Safiya – “all the shoes are black.”
Amie – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Gabriela – “the shoes all have Velcro.”
Alexandra – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Ada – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Veronika – “the shoes are all black.”
The second group
Alex – “I put my shoes in this group because they are all big shoes”
Tim – “I put my shoes into this group because they have Velcro.”
The third group contained Mrs Zurfluh’s slip on shoes.
Tomasz and Tim were unsure of why they had put their shoes into the second group. Tim and Gabriela felt that maybe they were all medium sized shoes but the rest of the students did not agree. We then decided to put Tomasz’s crocs into the 3rd group with the slip on shoes.
Alex and Altai said:” the first group was open shoes, the second group was closed shoes with laces and the third group were slip on shoes.
But Tomasz definitely did not think his shoes belonged in that group although they did not have Velcro or laces! So Mrs. Zurfluh put Tomasz’s and Tim’s shoes into second group and asked: “What about this?”
Children thought for a long time. Safir then suggested that it will work because the first group was girls’ shoes and the second group was boys’ shoes! Ada agreed with this.
At the end, students noticed that we can sort things into different groups in many different ways as long as we can explain why.