Spots vs. Stripes

Spots vs. Stripes!

Today we sorted items into categories. The kiddos were struggling with stripes and spots on the animals, so another lesson was born.

Language Targets:
Expressive Language: I focused on "that" but If your students are ready for "it" that would work better :)
Receptive Language: What questions

Materials: 2 boxes, one labeled with stripes and one with spots, different items with spots and stripes (some were zoo animals, but I also used other items as well. Some examples: clothes, paper, bucket with spots, a microphone, etc. Have fun finding your items!)

First, we reviewed the zoo animal vocabulary. Then I pulled out the zoo animals that had stripes or spots. Talk about how the animals look and discuss where to put each animal (either in the stripe box or the spot  box).

Next, have the items in a big bag, pull out the first item.

T: What is that?
S: That is a scarf!
T: Does that have spots or stripes?
S:That has stripes! (Student should put it in the box labeled stripes)

Continue until all items have been sorted. At the end, we counted the items in each box. Which box has the most??

To make the boxes, I cut the tops off of tissue boxes. Then I covered the boxes with large masking tape (took two times around to cover the pattern on the boxes). Last, I drew stripes and spots on index cards and taped to the outside of each box.

Stripe Center
For morning center, the students cut black stripes and glued the stripes on orange paper. We talked about what animal has that pattern too.

Dot Center
We also did dot sticker D's. Our letter for the week is D, so we combined spots (dots) and D!