Exit Slip: Sort and Count is a quick kindergarten check on Common Core K.MD.3 built around one picture: a collection tray holding exactly 4 triangles, 6 circles, and 8 stars. Students count each shape type and write the three totals, then answer two multiple-choice questions naming the category with the most (stars) and the fewest (triangles). The final line asks for the three counts in order from least to greatest: 4, 6, 8. Four numbered questions in total, with a key.
K.MD.3
“Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count.”
The slip is the standard in miniature: question 1 classifies and counts the three shape categories, and questions 2 to 4 sort those categories by their counts of 4, 6, and 8.
Students count the shapes scattered on the tray and write a number for each: triangles (4), circles (6), and stars (8), with the shape symbols printed beside each box.
Three follow-ups on the same counts: check which category has the most, check which has the least (fewest), and write the counts in order from least to greatest as 4, 6, 8.
End of a sorting lesson
One image and four questions fit the last five minutes. Because all shapes share a single tray, students must classify before they count, which is the point.
Grading shortcut
Question 4's ordered list, 4, 6, 8, tells you everything: a student with it right almost certainly counted and compared correctly upstream. Scan that line first.
Re-sort extension
Fast finishers can flip the task on the back of the slip: write the counts from greatest to least, or draw a tray where triangles would win instead of stars.
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