Checking Again

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK7
curriculum_id: a_bug_hotel
curriculum_name: A Bug Hotel
level_id: L1
level_name: All Ages
age_line: around 2 to around 6
term: 1
week: 7
title: Checking Again
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 25
weekly_minutes: 50
blocks: [{n: 1, title: Nobody Tells You the Steps, minutes: 25}, {n: 2, title: Find What Has Changed, minutes: 25}]
domains: [UW, M]
objectives: [{domain: UW, text: Runs the three steps of the check in order without being prompted}, {domain: M, text: Names one thing that is different from last week and says which layer it is in}]
materials: [none]
space: the finished hotel, approached from the door in the same way as last week
differentiation: {younger: does step one and step two with the group and says her one thing at the end, older: runs all three steps alone while the rest of the group watches her do it}
watching_for: whether a child starts at the bottom without being reminded where the bottom is
resources: []
version: 1.0
date: 2026-09-04
access: free

A BUG HOTEL · OUTDOOR LEARNING

ALL AGES · around 2 to around 6 · TERM 1, WEEK 7 · 2 × 25


DOMAINS: UW, M
CODE: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK7
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

UW Runs the three steps of the check in order without being prompted.
M Names one thing that is different from last week and says which layer it is in.

Before you build

This is an ordinary week. It is the same three steps as last week, done again, and there is nothing clever underneath it. A routine becomes a routine on the second time it is done, not the first, and that is the whole of what happens today. Say it plainly to yourself and do not invent a reason to make it more.

The difference between this week and last is only that you say less. Take them out, stop them a step short, and wait. Somebody will start. If nobody starts after a slow count of fifteen, name step one only and then go quiet again. You are handing the sequence over, which takes silence rather than instruction, and the silence will feel much longer to you than to them.

Half the group will find nothing different and say so, and half will find something that was there last week too. Both are fine and neither is corrected. If your class genuinely cannot find a change, the honest answer is that a week is not very long and nothing much happened, and a class that hears that from you in week 7 will believe you in week 10 when something has.

How we work at the hotel

One adult stays with the group for the whole session. Sticks, bark and stones are carried with two hands, held low, one piece at a time, walking.
Hands are washed with soap after every session at the hotel, every time, whether a child handled materials or only watched.
Nothing living is ever touched, moved, picked up or poked, with a finger or with a stick. We look, and we leave it exactly where it is.
If anything appears that is not on a layer card, everyone stops, moves back one full step and touches nothing. The adult deals with it alone and the group carries on somewhere else.
The hotel is never taken apart to see inside. We look into the gaps that are already there.
Every piece used is bigger than a child's fist or longer than a child's hand. Anything smaller goes back on the ground.
Sticks with a broken point and bark with a split edge go back on the ground. We use the blunt pieces.
A child who does not want to touch anything stands with the group and looks. She is not asked a second time and she is not moved to the edge.

At the hotel

Nobody Tells You the Steps · 25 minutes

AIM: Carry out the three steps in the right order with nobody saying what they are.

Walk out and stop the line a step short, then say nothing. Hold your own hands behind your back where they can see them. Wait through the shuffling. The first child to step back and look at the whole thing has started the check, and the rest will follow her rather than you.

Let it run wrong if it runs wrong. A group that kneels first and looks at the whole thing afterwards has still done both, and you can ask at the end which one they did first rather than stopping them halfway. Keep to yourself the fact that you are counting.

Close by naming the three steps yourself, in order, once, as a summary rather than a correction. Remind them in your own words what everybody does if something turns up that is not on a card: stop, step back, touch nothing, and leave it to you.

SAY: "You know what to do here. Off you go. I am not telling you the steps today."

Find What Has Changed · 25 minutes

AIM: Name one thing that is different from last week and say which layer it is in.

Send them in fours to the open side as before. This time the one thing they say at the end has to be a difference, and it has to come with a layer name attached: the grass has flattened, the tubes are darker, that stone has not moved.

Ask them to hold it rather than say it straight away. Look, then come back to the line, then tell the group. The gap between finding and saying is where they check themselves, and two children will change their answer in those few steps.

If the class finds nothing different, say so out loud as the finding of the day and write it on the board when you go in. Nothing changed this week is a real entry and it belongs in the record with all the others.

SAY: "Something is different from last week. Find it. Do not tell me yet."

If you have more time

Ask each child to point at the layer she is talking about before she says her sentence, five minutes.
Walk round to the closed back of the hotel and look at it from there, then decide together whether anything is different at the back.

One thing for home

Same check as last week, this time with the children running it. Ask your child what the three steps are. If you are asked why this is worth doing: a routine that a child can run without an adult is a routine she owns.

How you know it is working

Somebody starts the check before you have said anything. A child says a layer name and a change in the same sentence.

Notes: