People Sort - Pre-K Game about Sets and Categories (Early Math Collaborative at Erikson)

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Preschool dual language learners sort and re-sort each other based on various attributes, after reading the book Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins.
This elementary school math game involves an open sort in which the categories can include a wide range of attributes that must be identified and described by the sorter. Sorting is governed by rules that describe relationships and lays a foundation for algebraic thinking, which is about numeric patterns and relationships, and the rules that govern them.
FOUNDATIONAL MATH TOPIC: SETS
Sets are basic to children’s thinking and learning. They are also basic to our number system. One of the most important jobs of each number is to describe “how many” there are in a set of things -be it one, seven, or three hundred and nineteen. Before we can figure out how many apples there are, we have to decide which things are apples, and which are not. Once we’ve created the set of things that are apples, perhaps by separating them from the oranges, then we can count them. Counting requires a set, and as a result, the properties of sets have a large influence on the number system, and on mathematics. © Erikson Institute’s Early Math Collaborative.