You can use the following Sortify game tips and tricks to enhance student learning as they play the game, and to encourage awareness during play.

Observe which bucket labels students are choosing and which they are not. It’s also helpful to pay attention to how students are organizing the tiles within the buckets. If you notice that students are consistently avoiding certain labels or organizational methods for the tiles, that might be an indicator to reteach an aspect of the topic.

Encourage students to choose more difficult labels by drawing their attention to the point values. You may want to first observe to see if students have figured out the point systems and allow them to share their strategies. You can then expand on their understanding and talk about ways to maximize points through selecting the most challenging labels.

Model how to use the tape tool. Certain data sets for math, sequencing, and ordering include a tape tool (pictured above). This tool allows students to “tape” together multiple tiles before placing them in a bucket. For example, in the Basic Adding Sortify game, students could tape together the 4 and 3 tiles and place the combination in the 7 bin. In the Continents and Oceans Sortify game, one of the labels asks students to order the continents from smallest to biggest: students can tape together 2 or more tiles and rack up the points!