Putting Back What Fell

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK9
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: 9
title: Putting Back What Fell
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 25
weekly_minutes: 50
blocks: [{n: 1, title: Everything On the Ground, minutes: 25}, {n: 2, title: Reading the Card to Put It Back, minutes: 25}]
domains: [UW, PD, M]
objectives: [{domain: UW, text: Names the layer that a fallen piece came from}, {domain: PD, text: Puts a piece back packed the way its own card says, loose or firm}, {domain: M, text: Says whether a layer needs one more piece or is already full}]
materials: [The Layer Cards, the spare pile kept back in week 4 and week 5]
space: the finished hotel and the ground for two steps around it in every direction
differentiation: {younger: carries one fallen piece to the line and hands it to the child who is putting it back, older: finds the card for a piece and reads out which line of it says how to pack it}
watching_for: whether a child checks the card before she pushes a piece in rather than after
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 9 · 2 × 25


DOMAINS: UW, PD, M
CODE: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK9
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

UW Names the layer that a fallen piece came from.
PD Puts a piece back packed the way its own card says, loose or firm.
M Says whether a layer needs one more piece or is already full.

Before you build

Either nothing will have fallen out, or a third of it will be on the ground. There is very little in between and which one you get depends on your wall, your wind and whether anybody has been at it. Both versions run the same session, and the spare pile you kept back in week 4 and week 5 is what makes that true.

If your hotel is intact, take four pieces out yourself before the children arrive and put them on the ground where they would have fallen. Do not announce that you did it and do not deny it if you are asked. Say yes, I took those out so that we could practise putting things back, which is honest and which is also the answer to the question they are really asking.

The reason this week exists is the cards. For eight weeks the layer cards have been yours. Today they go into the children's hands, and a five year old who cannot read a word can still match a stick in her hand to the picture of a stick on a card and find the line that says which way it points. Hold the cards out rather than reading from them.

Watch the order. A child will push a piece back in and then check whether it was right, because putting it back feels like the job and the card feels like the paperwork. Turn it round by making the card the ticket: nothing goes back into the hotel until the card has been found for it, and you hold the piece until it has.

The grass is where this gets tested. Grass is packed firm, and a child who has spent the last three weeks being told to be gentle with the hotel will put grass back loose and it will fall out again by next week. Put your hand over hers and push it in properly once, and say that this is the one that gets pushed hard.

You will be short of something. Every class is short of one material by week 9 and it is usually leaves, because leaves blow. Send two children out for more from the ground and let them run the size rule on what they bring, exactly as in week 2. Nobody needs reminding how.

Whatever goes back in, the hotel does not get opened to do it. Everything is pushed in from the front, into the gap it came out of. If a piece cannot go back without taking something apart, it stays out, and it goes into the spare pile, and that is a correct outcome rather than a failure.

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

Everything On the Ground · 25 minutes

AIM: Find every piece that has come out and bring it to the line without putting anything back.

Walk the group round the hotel first, two steps out, looking down. Nobody touches the hotel at all in this block. The instruction that carries it is the one that will be broken: bring it to me, do not put it back.

Lay the found pieces in a row on the ground at the line, spaced out, not in a heap. Then walk the row with the group and ask for each one where it came from. Take guesses. When two children disagree, put the piece between them and go on to the next one, and come back to it in block two.

Tell them in your own words, before you go in, what everyone does if something turns up on the ground that is not on a card: stop, hands away, one step back, and it is yours to sort out alone.

SAY: "Look on the ground all round it. Anything that fell. Bring it to me, do not put it back."

Reading the Card to Put It Back · 25 minutes

AIM: Find the card for each piece and put it back the way the card says it is packed.

Spread the layer cards face up on the ground beside the row of pieces. Pick up the first piece yourself, hold it up, and wait for somebody to point at a card. Then read out the packing line from that card and hand the piece over.

From there, run it as a queue. A child picks a piece, finds its card, brings both to you, and only then goes to the hotel. Hold onto anything that arrives without a card. Two children will try to skip the card, once each, and then stop.

Do the grass yourself with a child's hand under yours, pushed in hard, held, released. Finish with the whole group standing a step back looking at the mended front, and name out loud the one thing that could not go back and why.

SAY: "Which card does this one come from? Find it. Then you can put it back."

If you have more time

Go back to the two pieces the group disagreed about in block one and settle them with the cards, seven minutes.
Put the leftover pieces into the spare pile and count how many are in it now.

One thing for home

Some of the hotel had fallen out and we put it back using the cards. Ask your child which card was hers. If you are asked why this is worth doing: mending something you built, by checking rather than guessing, is most of what looking after anything turns out to be.

How you know it is working

A child goes to the cards before she goes to the hotel. Somebody tells another child that a piece is packed wrong and points at the line on the card that says so. One of them leaves a piece out because it will not go back without opening the hotel.

Notes: