Detective and Night Sky Picture Sort

About this resource

Cut, sort and glue. This deck gives a child 8 picture cards to cut apart and sort into two groups: Investigation Tools (the things a detective carries and uses) or Night Sky (the things you see when you look up at night). The cards join edge to edge, so cutting is straight lines only, and the two groups are mixed on the page, so the page itself never gives an answer away. Three sort mats take a child from a faint picture guide to gluing with no guide to writing the words, and the adult pages score the same sort and track it over time.

WHAT IS INCLUDED -- 23 pages, 293 type-in fields

The Picture Cards

• 8 picture cards in full color, 4 for each of the 2 groups, each a big cut-apart piece laid out 4 across and 2 down, with the word under the picture -- Investigation Tools: footprints, paw prints, name badge, magnifying glass; Night Sky: satellite, telescope, shooting star, full moon
• The same 8 cards again as an ink-saver set in pure black outlines, for the photocopier
• A note on the card pages naming the 4 pictures a child may name another way (paw prints, name badge, satellite, shooting star), and flagging that "paw prints" can also be said as "footprints" -- which is itself a card of its own -- so you can decide once how that answer is marked

Sort Mats And Answer Key

• Sort Mat 1 -- both groups, a faint picture of every card to match, and a "draw one more" box for each group
• Sort Mat 2 -- both groups with no picture guide, room to glue all 4 cards in each
• Sort Mat 3 -- both groups, a handwriting line under each card's spot to write the word, plus three lines to write a sentence about one word
• Every mat has a "My name" line, one short instruction with a picture, and a small level shape (a dot, a square or a triangle, not a number)
• An adult answer key: all 8 pictures under their group, with the alternate names, the header pictures explained, and a line to write your own rule

Probe And Track

• 2 quick probe forms (A, B), 4 pictures each, with a + / - mark for every picture and the group printed under each word. No picture is on both forms: A and B together are all 8 cards
• Full-Deck Probe -- all 8 cards in one table, the group each belongs in, a mark for each and a line for the group the child chose
• Data Log -- 17 rows: date, form, correct, out of, percent, notes
• Percent Graph -- 14 probes across, 0-100 percent grid, a field for the team's own criterion
• Caseload Summary -- 16 rows: student, last form given, baseline, current, trend, decision

Share And Write

• Sort at Home -- a family update built from 6 of the 8 pictures, a sorting activity to do together, a weekly practice table and lines for the pictures the family noticed
• Phrase Bank -- 19 observable-language starters across 5 groups (accuracy, which group, carryover, the log and graph, the caseload page)
• Filled Example -- an invented student, eight probes, every percent re-counted from its own row

ALSO INSIDE: Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, four section dividers, and a "what's next" back page.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: print the mats and cards for the child, and type into the log, graph, caseload page, family page and probe-form fields, or print those and use a pen. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a norm-referenced or standardized test.

It carries no detective or astronomy lesson and no elicitation, cueing or modeling script. It does not decide what counts as a correct sort, a criterion, or a typical rate for this sort: every one of those is your own call, written once and reused every session. It covers two groups of 4 pictures each; it is not a word list, a task box or a matching binder.

Who This Is For

Speech-language pathologists, special education teachers and paraprofessionals with young or pre-reading students who are learning to sort and name everyday vocabulary, and the families who get the sorting activity sent home.

Pictures: Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0 (color); Fluent Emoji by Microsoft, MIT License (ink-saver black and white).