Online Activity

Here is a collection of shapes I want to sort and organize.

Triangles, circles, squares and hexagons in a variety of colours and sizes.

What is my sorting rule for putting shapes into the circle?

A variety of squares in a circle, a variety of circles, triangles and hexagons outside of the circle.

What is my sorting rule for this circle?

A variety of red shapes inside the circle, a variety of blue and yellow shapes outside the circle.

This time I’m going to use 2 sorting rules.
What are my rules?

A variety of yellow shapes in a circle, a variety of blue shapes in a second circle, a variety of red shapes outside of the two circles.

Now I’m going to use a special organizer called a Venn Diagram. What is the sorting rule for each circle? What about the shapes that are in the middle where the circles overlap?

2 overlapping circles, there are a variety of squares in the first circle and a variety of red shapes in the second circle, in the middle where the 2 circles overlap there are red squares.Your Turn

Now it’s your turn to try some sorting activities using the Shape Sorter.

Play Make The Rule

  • Click on the button with the yellow, green, and blue overlapping circles at the left of the screen.
  • Click on the grey button with two separate circles.
  • Beside “Rule of Circle 1”, Click on the “Choose a rule” and choose a shape or colour that you want to sort by. Beside “Rule of
  • Circle 2”, Click on the other “Choose a rule” and choose another shape or colour to sort by.
  • Drag each shape that fits one of the rules to the correct circle. Drag all the shapes that do not fit either rule to the area outside the circles. A message will appear when all the shapes are in the correct locations.

Click the “New!” button to start a new game.
Try clicking the overlapping circles to use the Venn diagram.

Play Guess the Rule

  • Click on the button with the red question mark at the left of the screen and click on the grey button with one circle. The program will create a sorting rule for you to try to figure out.
  • Click and drag different coloured shapes into the circle.
  • Try to guess the rule based on which shapes and colours are right or wrong.
  • Select the rule from the pull-down menu and then click on the “Check Rule” button.
  • Click the New! button to start a new game.
  • Try clicking on the two separate circles and the overlapping circles to find two rules.