Vowel Sort

This is the front side and the back looks the same, but is titled "Short Vowels"

I know it's summer time, but I'm still catching up with posting ideas you can use this upcoming school year.  I don't believe in work sheets, but I do think there should be an accountability piece for student learning.  Thus, creating a sound sort.  This particular sort was with long and short vowels, but the ideas are limitless and could be focused on blends, digraphs, or letter sounds just to name a few.

I used a program called Match Word to generate my pictures, but Scholastic has an awesome picture sorting book you could use.  Another idea is to use the pictures from worksheets for your sort.  See, those work sheets have been re-purposed for a more rigorous learning task! :-)  On one side I had students sort long vowels and on the other side sort the short vowels.  Students were given a sheet of pictures mixed with long and short vowels.  They first created the chart and cut out the pictures.  Next, they sorted the pictures by long and short vowels.  Finally, they colored the pictures.  This learning task hones in on fine motor and literacy skills at the same time. :-)  I have a picture of what my challenge group did for a differentiation spin on the task.  My "on grade level" friends just sorted the pictures by long and short without organizing them by specific vowels.  My "little guys" did a sort with only short vowels and focused on two instead of all five (i.e. a short e and short i sort).  I hope you can use this!  They had fun completing the task and it was a great way to assess where everyone was at with vowel sounds.  Cheers!