Ms. Moran's Kindergarten: Which Doesn't Belong For Kindergarten and a Which Doesn't Belong Shape Freebie

One of my favorite open ended games to play within my classroom is the game "Which Doesn't Belong." This game not only encourages students with critical thinking skills, reasoning, and but is also great for vocabulary development and encourages students to explain their thinking.

How to play?

To play the game, students are presented with four pictures. They must select the picture that they think doesn't belong and the most important part is so explain why. It is opened ended so different students may have different answers for what they feel doesn't belong and there are no wrong answer as long as students can explain their reason as to why it doesn't belong.

In my classroom, I have used cards that are perfect for kindergarten standards that focus on beginning sounds, rhyming, counting and shapes.

Which Doesn't Belong Phonics

These cards all have the same beginning sounds. For example, for the letter l card, a student may say that the turtle does not belong, since it does not begin with l. Another student may say that the log does not belong since it cannot walk. For the beginning sound c card, a students may say that the hammer does not belong since it does not begin with the "c" sound. Another student say hammer does not belong since it has 2 syllables, all of the other words only have 1 syllable. I will often takes participate as well, especially when introducing this activity, and model my thinking for selecting a picture.

All of these pictures rhyme so students may say that on the bat, cat, pig and hat card, the pig does not belong since that word does not rhyme. Another student may say that the hat does not belong since all of the other pictures are animals or a student may see the color pink in all of the pictures except for the bat so another student may pick the bat. This activity is very open ended and as long as a student can justify their reasoning they are correct! For the card with the ten, hen, pen and tent, one student may pick tent because it does not rhyme. Another student may see yellow in all of the pictures except for the tent and may say that the tent does not belong. I might also model the number of phonemes/ sounds I hear in the word. If I segment, ten, pen, and hen, I would hear 3 sounds but if I segment the word tent, I hear 4 sounds so that would not belong. You may be surprised at all of the different ideas that your students think of and it is a great way to encourage higher level thinking.

Which Doesn't Belong Math

Your students may also like playing What Doesn't Belong counting game which works great whole group but also is perfect for a math center counting activity.

I have included cards with an X symbol over the number for students to select as the number that is not the same to mark their answer as the number that is different, or students can put an x mark over the number that does not belong.

Your students may also enjoy Which Doesn't Belong shapes, which provides great practice identifying the names of both 2d and 3d shapes.

This game is great to play during morning meeting, at the beginning of math or phonics instruction or whenever you have an extra few minutes in your day. Students could also play independently in centers or it could be a teacher directed small group activity.

You can find all of these activities in my Which Doesn't Belong Kindergarten Bundle