More early reasoning skills

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody, my name's Emma and welcome to today's lesson. I'm looking forward to today's session and I hope you are too. I can't wait to get started. But before we do, just a quick reminder, we here at Oak are here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have any questions, please do contact your child's school or usual speech and language therapy team. In today's session, we're carrying on by thinking about more early reasoning skills. I'm going to be introducing an object sort activity for you to complete at home, and then I'll be sharing some other activity ideas so that you can continue to work on your early reasoning. So for today's session, you'll need some pegs if you've got them. Shoe box or container, some card or paper for cutting, some scissors, some buttons and any other everyday objects that might be helpful. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have running on your device, and then make sure that you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's the begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking thinking about early reasoning skills. In our previous lesson, we talked about the fact that thinking skills begin to develop when a child learns to process information. It's crucial for learning. When processing information, the brain needs to recognise and understand what it's seeing and then store that information to create new learning. Most of the information that we process comes from what we see and hear. Early thinking skills begins with early information processing. Yesterday we talked about that and this includes being able to find and collect relevant information, and then being able to sort things according to that information. In our previous lesson, we worked on colour sorting or colour matching. In today's session, we're going to be working on simple object sorting. Simple object sorting tasks, support the development of early reasoning skills that could like our colour matching tasks, they present visual information that the child then needs to process in order to be able to complete the task. So pause the video here to get a shoe box or a container that has a lid. Come back to the video and press play when you've got what you need. In order to make our object sorting box, adults, you're going to need to gather up some card or paper and cut this into two different shapes. For example, circles and squares. Then in the top of the cardboard box or container that you just cut up, make two holes to match the shapes that you made. We want it to look a little bit like this. So pause the video here to make your object sorting task. When you've finished, come back to the video and press play to continue. So now you've got your resources. They should look a bit like this. You can see that on the left-hand side, I've got my object shapes stored in a small container. On the right hand side, I've got my shoe box with my two different holes. Now, I'm going to sort the shapes on my left-hand side, into my shoe box on the right, and I'm going to place the shapes into the holes that they match. So pause the video here to have a go completing your objects sort activity at home. When you've had a few times, come back to the video and press play to continue. Remember, the aim is for our children to complete these sorts of tasks with as much independence as possible. You might want to start with just a few objects to sort and model how to sort these objects as needed. Over time, you could work towards a take apart sort. This is where you would have an object attached to another, they would need to be taken apart and then sorted into a box. Here I've attached some pegs to some buttons. In order to complete this task, I would need to remove each peg from the button and then sort it into the hole that matches that shape. Pause the video here to get some pegs and buttons of your own. Come back to the video and press play when you're ready to continue. Why don't you have a go making and completing your own take apart sorting activity? As always, the most important thing is that we're having fun. So have lots of fun with as many different object sorting games as you possibly can. Try and work the concept of sorting objects into two groups, into as many of your day-to-day activities as you can. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, but a really big well done on all the hard work that you put into sorting objects today. Don't forget to share your hard work and progress with your school. And if you'd like, you could also ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter by tagging @OakNational so I can see the progress that you're making too. All that's left to me to say is thank you. But take care and enjoy the rest of your learning today. Bye bye.

More early reasoning skills

More early reasoning skills

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Licence

Lesson video

Worksheet