This depends on how and with what materials you want to work out the categorising and in what form. This can range from a single pre-prepared worksheet to materials you collect with the children in the forest.
- Cards or pictures
- Word cards (e.g. nouns, verbs, emotions, professions)
- Pictures or photos (animals, objects, nature, people, situations)
- Theme-specific sets (e.g. autumn, traffic, farm)
- Physical objects (if available)
- Small objects from classroom or school, park and forest etc.
- Toys or materials from corners (cars, plastic animals, blocks)
- Worksheets/sort sheets
- Blank sort sheets with boxes or circles
- Worksheets with space to name categories
- Venn diagrams or matrices (for slightly older or stronger pupils)
- Thematic materials (subject-specific)
- Language: words by theme or word type
- Maths: sums, numbers, units of measurement
- World orientation: nature images, weather symbols, maps
- Social education: pictures of behaviour, emotions or situations
- Digital materials (optional)
- Digiboard or tablet with drag-and-drop categorization tasks
- Online tools such as educational apps or digital learning environments
Key tip: Choose materials that contain enough variety and doubt, so that students must think about why something does or does not fit into a category – this triggers critical thinking.