Sorting People

We began our sorting and graphing work by sorting manipulable objects--buttons and lids.  Then we moved onto recording those sortings on paper, stepping from the concrete to the abstract.  Our next step today was to sort people and their preferences. 

Again, we used "Not Boxes," and moved from the concrete to the abstract.  I outlined large sorting boxes on the floor of our meeting area in masking tape.  Then sorted four or five children at a time into the boxes, first by looking at obvious physical traits (long pants/not long pants, wearing blue/not wearing blue), then by personal preferences (Do you like spaghetti/not like spaghetti?  Do you like swimming/do you not like swimming?)  After everyone had a turn, we repeated this process in a slightly more abstract manner by sorting name cards into the giant boxes.  Another step towards abstraction was writing children's names onto a set of boxes drawn on chart paper.  For homework tonight, children will sort the names of their family members into boxes after asking the question "Do you like pizza?" 

Was this lesson differentiated?  Not at first glance.  It was a whole group lesson without being particularly open-ended.  Tomorrow, as students do some of their own surveying, there will be more opportunity for students to modify the lesson to suit their own needs.  I'll have to think more about this one.  Perhaps there is something more that I could do with questioning throughout-- planning out questions ahead of time tiered for different levels.  Let me know if you have ideas!