Sort the Names: He, She or They

Ten name cards sit on a shelf across the top of this 1st grade page, each with a picture and a name: Jack, Anna, Lily and Zoe, Max, Tom, Ava and Ben, Emma, Leo, Mia, Eli. Below them stand three tall ruled columns headed he, she and they. The child reads each card and writes the name into the column for the word we would use for that person. Eight cards name one person and two name a pair, one of which is a girl and a boy.

Sorting rather than choosing is what this face adds: a child sees all ten at once and has to build three groups, which surfaces the rule instead of testing it card by card. The two pair cards are the ones that make the third column exist at all, and because one of them is mixed, they cannot be described as the word for girls or the word for boys. Writing the names rather than ticking them adds a little handwriting to the reasoning.

One sheet, ten names, three columns. The columns are printed the same height with more lines than any of them will need, so five names under he and two under they is the expected, uneven finish. Use it after the circle-the-word page and alongside the replace-the-name face, which takes the same three words into sentences.