Multi-Purpose Seasonal Sorting Activity

Check out this fun way to review concepts such as colors, shapes, letters, numbers or even Thanksgiving vocabulary.  

All you need is a disposable pie pan, glue gun and one piece of off-white felt.  

1. Cut your felt into a circle the size of your pie pan. 
2. Fold it in half and cut three slits in the middle.  
3. Glue it to the edge of the pie pan.

Here's a photo of the completed "pie".

You then have a "pie" to draw cards or objects out of.  Put small items or flash cards inside the slit of the pie. Students take turns pulling out various cards or items after you sing:  "What’s in the pie?" to the tune of “Are you Sleeping?”  

What’s in the pie? What’s in the pie? Stick your hand in and find out. Stick your hand in and find out.  What’s in the pie? What’s in the pie?  

Lesson Plan Note:  I use this activity as an extension to one of my favorite Thanksgiving books by Alison Jackson, "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie". 

Instructor's Insight: Put the same number of items in the pie as students who are playing the game. This gives the students a visual cue of how long the activity will last.  When the pie is empty, we are all done.  

Here we are using the activity to practice Thanksgiving vocabulary,
as well as sorting the items by color. 

Teacher's Tip:  Get the most out of this activity by adding other concepts to the game. For example, if you have three different colored items in the pie then have three sorting bowls beside the pie for the kids to sort the items by color. Or if you have numbers in the pie, have a Velcro paint stick outside the pie and put Velcro on the back of the numbers so that students can put the numbers in order as they pull them out of the pie.  

Extra Credit: It is always good to have a structured place for kids to put game pieces so they are not fiddling with them and can attend to the task at hand.