Round vs Square Sort Task Box

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, 151 type-in fields

• 57 picture cards in 21 rounds across 3 levels (29 round, 28 square), each round boxed to cut apart as a strip
• Every card twice: a full-color set for a laminated classroom box and a black-and-white ink-saver set for the photocopier
• 2 sort mats (color and ink-saver) with two labeled bins, ROUND and SQUARE, six card slots each
• An answer key listing every round by level, plus the full word list
• A task box data sheet (16 rows: date, level, rounds given, cards correct, cards given, percent, help given, initials)
• A percent graph, 14 sessions across, with a level box under each session
• A filled example — an invented student, 8 sessions, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family practice page with the same six cards and a mini mat
• A phrase bank: 25 lines in 6 groups (spoken lines for running the box, written starters for the note afterward)
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

A shape sort built the same way the store's data-backed task boxes are: cards, a mat, and the data sheet, graph and phrase bank behind them, so independent work practice turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Three Levels

• Level 1 — 10 rounds of two cards: one round object beside one square object, a different kind of thing every time (a soccer ball and a book, a box and a basketball). The first sorts are nearly impossible to get wrong.
• Level 2 — 7 rounds of three cards. The split varies (two round and one square, or one round and two square), so a child looks at each card instead of counting.
• Level 3 — 4 rounds of four cards, cut as 2 × 2 blocks. Every card is still a clean round or square shape — the harder part here is the mix, not a trick picture: a block can carry three round cards and one square, or the reverse. Splits run from one round card to three.

Nothing on a card says its level except a dot code in the corner (one, two or three dots), so a mixed-up box sorts itself back together and nobody at a shared table can see who has the two-card rounds.

The Words

• Round (29): alarm clock, apple, bagel, balloon, baseball, basketball, cd, clock, coconut, coin, compass, cookie, crystal ball, doughnut, gear, life ring, medal, moon, orange, peach, pool ball, soccer ball, stopwatch, target, tomato, volleyball, watch, wheel, yo-yo
• Square (28): battery, book, box, briefcase, calendar, chocolate bar, clipboard, desktop computer, dice, door, envelope, fax machine, folder, framed picture, ice cube, id card, keyboard, laptop, newspaper, notebook, postbox, present, printer, ruler, suitcase, television, ticket, toolbox
• Mat icons (never cards): globe, bricks

Every picture is a photo-real object, not an abstract circle or square icon — a picture sort, not a shape-swatch match. Every word was checked to be named in one word by a young child, in color AND in the black-and-white set; a word that failed in either set, or that read as oval, a slice, a cluster or a crescent instead of cleanly round or square, was left out of both.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the data sheet, the graph header, the family page and the example-style notes, or print and use a pen. The card pages and mats print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a test of anything.

It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule, and it does not decide what a percent means for a student or when to move up a level. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. It measures one thing: cards placed in the right bin.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals running independent work stations or task box rotations with early or pre-reading students, case managers who need that practice to show up as data, and the families who get the practice page sent home.

More In The Collection

Also in the collection: Food vs Not Food, Big vs Small, Living vs Not Living, School Supplies, and more Sort Task Boxes, all on the same cards-plus-data shape, gathered in the Task Box Collection Bundle.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.