Being able to quickly group your students is very helpful as a teacher. I have three quick and (mostly) free ways to group them.
Playing Cards
The first easy grouping idea is to use a regular deck of cards. I bought a new deck for $1 at Walmart. What I love about playing cards, is you can split the class in half (red vs black or evens vs odds), into four groups (each suit is its own group), you can group by fours (all kings, all queens, etc), and so on. There are tons of different ways to group using playing cards!
Paint Chips
Another great way to group kids is by using cut up paint swatches, and the students have to find the other colors in their “family”. I got this idea from Fast Times of a Middle School Math Teacher, and headed straight for Home Depot. I asked the lady in the paint section if I could take a few cards, and she let me take as many as I wanted (I only took 8: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and gray – of course I picked the cards that most closely matched my classroom colors, because I’m a little neurotic…)
Famous Pairs
While the two grouping methods are great, this last one is my favorite! I made a set of grouping cards using food pairs – peanut butter and jelly, waffles and syrup, peas and carrots, and more! My kids love using these cards! I always enjoy watching them try and figure out what their pair would be! I have also used these cards before when randomly assigning seats. I will tape one card on each desk, making sure to keep all the pairs for those cards in a separate pile. As students come in the room, they pick a card and sit in the seat with the other half of the pair. It’s a quick and easy way to assign seating.
How do you group your students?
