BFSU Enrichment
LESSON A-B-1

Organizing Things into Categories

A hands-on enrichment kit — posters, activity cards, student sheets, and a song — for a child's first big idea in science: things that belong together get put together.

Free enrichment to teach alongside Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Volume 1 by Dr. Bernard J. Nebel. It reproduces none of his text — you'll want the book to teach from it. Get the book on Amazon →
Developed by Jesse Genet · @jessegenet
Download the kit
Posters
A Place for Everything
A Place for Everything
download
Sorted by Color, Sorted by Size
Sorted by Color, Sorted by Size
download
One Apple, Two Categories
One Apple, Two Categories
download
Groups Inside Groups
Groups Inside Groups
download
The activities — six hands-on experiment cards
The Big Sort
Card 1 · Kids hands-on

The Big Sort

A category is things that belong together — and the same pile sorts many right ways, depending on the attribute you notice.

⬇ This card
Guess My Rule
Card 2 · Kids hands-on

Guess My Rule

The sorting rule lives in the sorter's head — and a careful watcher can figure it out from the evidence alone. That is what scientists do.

⬇ This card
Hula-Hoop Floor Venn
Card 3 · Kids hands-on

Hula-Hoop Floor Venn

One thing can belong to two categories at once — it stands in the overlap. A real Venn diagram, big enough to stand in.

⬇ This card
The Memory Tray Game
Card 4 · Kids hands-on

The Memory Tray Game

Organization powers memory — Nebel's own proof. Sorting the tray in your head makes the recall number jump, and the kids measure it.

⬇ This card
Categories Within Categories
Card 5 · Kids hands-on

Categories Within Categories

Groups hold groups: categories subdivide into subcategories and combine into bigger ones. A tree diagram grows live on the board.

⬇ This card
Real-World Sorting Walk
Card 6 · Kids hands-on

Real-World Sorting Walk

Anything can be sorted — and the house is already full of sorting somebody chose on purpose. Once you see it, you can't stop seeing it.

⬇ This card
The song
🎵
Put It With Its Friends
A-B-1's sing-along — press play
⬇ Lyric sheet
In the student binder
Everything that's included