Wet Layers and Dry Layers

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK8
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: 8
title: Wet Layers and Dry Layers
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 25
weekly_minutes: 50
blocks: [{n: 1, title: The Back of Your Hand, minutes: 25}, {n: 2, title: High Ones and Low Ones, minutes: 25}]
domains: [PD, UW, M, PSED]
objectives: [{domain: PD, text: Touches the face of a layer with the back of one hand without pushing anything in}, {domain: UW, text: Says damp or dry for each of four named layers}, {domain: M, text: Says whether the damp layers sit lower or higher than the dry ones}, {domain: PSED, text: Puts her hands back behind her back after each touch without being told}]
materials: [none]
space: the finished hotel, with the group kneeling at the open side in fours
differentiation: {younger: touches two layers with an adult's hand beside hers and says wet or dry, older: puts the four layers in order from wettest to driest}
watching_for: whether the back of the hand stays flat or the fingers start to push in
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 8 · 2 × 25


DOMAINS: PD, UW, M, PSED
CODE: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK8
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

PD Touches the face of a layer with the back of one hand without pushing anything in.
UW Says damp or dry for each of four named layers.
M Says whether the damp layers sit lower or higher than the dry ones.
PSED Puts her hands back behind her back after each touch without being told.

Before you build

Damp is the one thing in this hotel a child cannot see. Everything else has been looked at for two weeks. Today the information arrives through the back of a hand, and that is why the week exists.

The back of the hand, not the palm, and this is not fussiness. A palm grips, and a palm on a layer of leaves comes away with leaves in it. The back of a hand can only rest. Show it on your own arm first, then on the layer, and let them copy the shape before anybody goes near the hotel.

For three weeks the rule has been hands behind backs and today you are unpicking it for twenty minutes. Say so before you go out, say what the hands are for, and say that they go back behind afterwards. If you do not name the change, two children will take it as a general reopening and by the end of the block somebody will have a fist in the grass.

Your class may find that every single layer is dry. In a hot dry month that is the correct answer and it is not a failed lesson. Teach the method, take whatever comes back, and say plainly that today everything is dry, or that today the bottom is damp, or whatever is actually true. The method is the thing being taught and it works on any answer.

Water runs down and sun does not reach the bottom, so the low layers are usually the damper ones and the grass near the top is usually the driest. Usually. Do not say it before they have touched anything, because if you say it first they will report it back to you whether it is true or not, and you will have taught them to agree with you rather than to check.

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

The Back of Your Hand · 25 minutes

AIM: Rest the back of one hand on the face of a layer and say whether it is damp or dry.

Do the whole three step check first, quickly, so the routine is not lost in the change. Then stop everyone at the line and demonstrate the touch on your own forearm, then on the stones, hand flat and still, two seconds, away.

Fours at the open side. Each child touches four layers in order from the bottom: stones, bark, leaves, grass. Back of hand, two seconds, away, hands behind. She says damp or dry after each one. Say nothing about whether she is right, because you have not touched it and she has.

Before the swap, tell them again in your own words what happens if something turns up that is not on a card, and this week say it with the hands out: hands straight back behind you, everybody steps back, nobody touches, and it is mine to deal with.

SAY: "Back of your hand. Rest it on the front. Wet, or dry? Hands away."

High Ones and Low Ones · 25 minutes

AIM: Say where the damp layers sit in the hotel and where the dry ones sit.

Come back out and go straight to the hotel with no preamble. Ask each child to point, without touching, at one layer she found damp and one she found dry. Pointing is enough and it is quicker than talking for the youngest ones.

Then ask the group the question that carries the block: are the damp ones near the bottom or near the top. Take a show of hands rather than answers one at a time. If the answers split, kneel down and let two children touch a low layer and a high layer again while the rest watch, and take a second show of hands.

Finish by saying what the class found today, in one sentence, out loud, standing back from the hotel. If everything was dry, that is the sentence.

SAY: "Point at a wet one. Now a dry one. Is the wet one high up or low down?"

If you have more time

Touch the same four layers again at the end of the day and see whether any answer has changed, six minutes.
Look at the front edge of the floor sheet at the very bottom, without lifting it, and say what it looks like compared with the grass.

One thing for home

We found out today which parts of the hotel are damp, using the backs of our hands. Ask your child which part was driest. If you are asked why this is worth doing: some things can only be found out by touching, and knowing which those are is worth having.

How you know it is working

A child's hand goes back behind her without a reminder. Somebody disagrees with another child about a layer and goes to check rather than argue.

Notes: