A Whole Day In A Row

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK10
curriculum_id: "a_day_without_screens"
curriculum_name: "A Day Without Screens"
level_id: L1
level_name: "All ages together"
age_line: "around 2 to around 6"
term: 1
week: 10
title: "A Whole Day In A Row"
aim: "Lays a row of cards for a whole day in her own order and names each one."
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 20
weekly_minutes: 40
blocks: [{n: 1, title: "Laying Out The Row", minutes: 20}, {n: 2, title: "The Row Goes Home", minutes: 20}]
domains: [PSED, CL, PD]
objectives: [{domain: PSED, text: "Lays a row of three or more cards in an order she sets."}, {domain: CL, text: "Names every card in her row from the first to the last."}, {domain: PD, text: "Lays each card down flat and separate rather than in a pile."}]
materials: ["Things To Do cards 1 to 16", "the things those cards name, or their minimum versions", "one dry cloth on the floor beside any card that uses water"]
space: "One mat, or one swept square of floor the size of a door, in the same place every week."
differentiation: {younger: "Three cards is a whole row. Lay the first one for her and let her add two.", older: "Ask her to lay a row for a younger child and read it to her."}
watching_for: "Whether she reads from the end she laid first."
resources: []
version: 1.0
date: "2026-09-04"
access: free

A DAY WITHOUT SCREENS · CHOOSING WHAT TO DO

L1 · around 2 to around 6 · TERM 1, WEEK 10 · 2 × 20 minutes


DOMAINS: PSED, CL, PD
CODE: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK10
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

PSED Lays a row of three or more cards in an order she sets.
CL Names every card in her row from the first to the last.
PD Lays each card down flat and separate rather than in a pile.

Before the mat goes down

If your mat is a metre across, a row of ten cards will not fit on it and she will curl the row round the edge. Run the row off the mat and along the floor instead, running away from her towards a wall. The row needs a straight line more than it needs the mat.

This is the week the curriculum is named for and it is worth saying plainly what happens. She lays a row. The row is a day. Nobody says the word day to her and nobody needs to. A child who can lay out eight things she is going to do has stopped needing to be told what to do next, and that is all this ever was.

Expect rows of four to six rather than ten. Ten is the ceiling and almost nobody reaches it. A row of four laid without help is a pass and you should treat it as one out loud.

The failure is the row she lays and then reads backwards. She will start naming from the end nearest her rather than from the end she laid first. Put your flat hand at the far end and say start here. Do not touch a card.

You will expect her to want to do the row after she has read it. Most of them do not. Laying it and naming it is the whole of week ten, and doing it is next term's problem. Let the row be a plan that never gets carried out.

The row goes home. Cut ten spare cards this week and let her take the row rather than a note, because a row of cards on a kitchen floor is a thing a family can read and a note is a thing they can lose. Write nothing on the back.

The child who has watched from the edge for ten weeks will lay a row this week or she will not, and either result is the same result. She has heard every card named sixteen times over. Put a set of cards in her hands at the end whether she has used them or not.

How the mat always runs

One adult stays with the mat while cards are out. The children carry their cards away from the mat and come back to it, so the adult stays where the cards are and not where the children go.
Water sits in a cup or a jug and never in anything deeper than a cup. A dry cloth stays on the floor beside any card that uses water. A spill is dried before the next child crosses that floor.
Hands are washed after any card that uses water, and after sweeping.
Every card is larger than a hand. Every object a card asks for is larger than a fist. Nothing smaller comes onto the mat, whatever the card says.
If something appears on the mat or on the floor that is not on the card list, stop, move the children back one full step, touch nothing, and deal with it alone.
A child who takes no card stays on the mat. She is not handed one and she is not asked again. She is counted as present and the mat carries on around her.
A child who takes the same card every week keeps taking it. Nothing is said about it.
A card with no materials in this room is run in its minimum version, which is written on the card. The minimum version is not a lesser version.
The word screen is not said to the children in any session of this curriculum, and no child is asked what she does at home.

This week on the mat

How the card reaches her this week. All sixteen lie face up. She lays out a row of cards for a whole day, in her own order, and names each one.

Laying Out The Row · 20 minutes

AIM: Lays cards in one line running away from her, one after another.

Clear a strip of floor running away from the mat towards a wall and put one card down at the near end yourself to show which way the line goes. Then take your hands off the floor entirely and sit back on your heels. When she puts a card down crooked, leave it crooked. The block ends when every child has a line of at least three cards on the floor.

SAY: "One here. Then the next. Make your line go that way."

The Row Goes Home · 20 minutes

AIM: Names every card in her row from the first to the last, in order.

Kneel at the far end of each row rather than the near end, so that she reads towards you. Put your flat hand on the floor beyond the first card and leave it there while she names. Do not touch a card and do not name one for her. When the row is read, gather it up in order and hand her the stack the right way up. The block ends when every row has been read and every stack has gone into a bag or a pocket.

SAY: "Read me your line. Start at the front. Every one."

If you have more time

Lay a row yourself, read it wrong on purpose, and let them correct it. Slots at the start of block two, five minutes.

One line home

Your child made a row of cards today for a whole day of things to do, in her own order, and the row has come home with her. Lay it out on the floor and let her read it to you.

If you are asked why: a child who can name eight things she can do does not need to be told what to do next.

You will know it is working when

The row runs in a line rather than a heap. She reads from the end she laid first. She names cards without looking at you between them. The row leaves the room with her.

Notes: