I was focusing on categorization for the month of October and shared about the set of new Category Adapted books I created.  I had to take a quick break from my category theme because I wanted to share about some Thanksgiving material before Thanksgiving was over but now back to categories!  I had some students needing more of a challenge with their category skills so I created these Level 2 Category Cards.  The set has 72 Category Level 2 cards and 72 What Doesn’t Belong Level 2 cards.

I’ll give you a quick comparison of how they are different from the original and now I would call them Level 1 Category Cards.  For my Level 1 Category Cards the student is presented with 3 items and needs to name the category in which those items belongs.  This is a great skill to work on but some of my students have mastered naming categories.

For my new Level 2 Category Cards the student now needs to name 5 items within a specific category.  This is also an important and different skill to work on with your students.

With my verbal students I either read the card or have the student read it and then work on naming items in that category.  For your non-verbal students they can work on finding items within that category on their AAC devices.  Even if they just list different items on the device and then can work on making a complete sentence later depending on their skill level.

I tried to make the categories more specific to make it more challenging.  Instead of just naming 5 food items the student has to name 5 types of meat, 5 desserts, or 5 red fruits.

Instead of just naming 5 clothing items the student has to name 5 winter clothes or 5 summer clothes.  Lots of different categories.

You can also have your student write the options on paper or a dry erase board.  I had one of my verbal students have difficulty understanding the task and verbally naming the items.  When I gave her a dry erase boards she was able to complete the task and then verbally read me the items on her written list.

The other part of these card sets consists of identifying what doesn’t belong.  For my Level 1 What Doesn’t Belong Cards, the student is presented with 4 items and needs to determine which item does not belong in the group and why.

For my Level 2 What Doesn’t Belong Cards, the student needs to determine “what don’t you need?” to make a familiar recipe or “what don’t they need?” for a given occupation.  Along the top of the card, it states either the recipe or occupation.  Then the student determines what doesn’t belong in that category.

For the recipe cards all the items on the card are related to food or kitchen appliances so the student really needs to think about what item does not belong in the group.

The occupation cards are challenging because the student has to know about the different occupations and what those community members do.

With my verbal students I either read the card or if the student can read I have him/her read the card.  Then the student has to determine what item doesn’t belong.  He can name the item or point to the item that does not belong.

My students like to use dry erase markers so sometimes I let my students cross out the item which does not belong in the group with a dry erase marker.  This is also a good option for non-verbal students who may not have an AAC device.

These are also great cards to use with you students who have AAC devices.  They can work on finding the item which doesn’t belong in the group on their device.  You can either have the student find the item’s name or expand their utterance and maybe select “no” and the item’s name.

If you are interested in these new Category Level 2 Cards or the original Level 1 Category Cards you can find them on TPT with the links

Category Level 1 Cards

Category Level 2 Cards