Odd One Out

Do you remember the song from Sesame Street called "One of These Things?" 

I had forgotten about it until I had some training on Lead4Ward strategies. These are instructional strategies that are designed to engage students, encourage interaction and allow the teacher to see and hear the thinking of the students.  One of the strategies is called Odd One Out  and is basically one of these things is not like the other. 

Basically, you give students 4 visuals, words or texts to determine which one is the odd one out and justify their thinking. 

I recently used this for my Library Orientation with 1st and 2nd graders.  I showed them 4 pictures relating to books, reading or book care and asked them to turn and talk to decide which one didn't belong. Then we shared with the group.  The conversations were spot on and super engaging for the students and some of their thinking really surprised me.  For example when I showed them these pictures 

I was looking for you can read in all the places EXCEPT the bathtub, which most groups came up with. But I did have one group say the couch was the wrong one because the book was green (which I didn't even notice until they said it lol) and another group say the car was wrong because the book would fall off of that.  Maybe those were not the right answers, but the students were able to justify their thinking so I call that a win!  

I plan to use this more often in the future. The only problem I have found is that I usually end up singing the "One of These Things is Not Like the Other" song for the rest of the day.