The Card Goes Back

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK2
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: 2
title: "The Card Goes Back"
aim: "Does the thing on her card and returns the card to the same place."
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 20
weekly_minutes: 40
blocks: [{n: 1, title: "Back On The Mat", minutes: 20}, {n: 2, title: "The Same Card Twice", minutes: 20}]
domains: [PSED, PD]
objectives: [{domain: PSED, text: "Returns her card to the mat at the end of the task."}, {domain: PD, text: "Carries the card across the room and back without putting it down on the way."}]
materials: ["Things To Do cards 1 to 4", "new this week: Wipe It Clean, Cups In A Tower", "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: "Walk back beside her every time for the whole block. Do not fade it this week.", older: "Ask her to collect two cards left on the floor and bring them both."}
watching_for: "Whether the card arrives back in her hand rather than in yours."
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 2 · 2 × 20 minutes


DOMAINS: PSED, PD
CODE: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK2
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

PSED Returns her card to the mat at the end of the task.
PD Carries the card across the room and back without putting it down on the way.

Before the mat goes down

You will expect the returning to be the easy half. It is not. Doing the card is easy because it is interesting. Carrying a small piece of card back across a room and putting it down in one particular place is interesting to nobody, and that is exactly why it is the thing being taught.

The moment she finishes, she will drop the card where she stands and walk away. Not once, every time, for the first three or four sessions. Do not call her back from across the room. Walk to her, pick the card up, put it in her hand, and walk beside her to the mat.

If your mat is against a wall and the water is in the far corner, the walk back is the length of the room and she will not make it. Put the mat between the door and wherever the cards send her, so that going back is on the way to somewhere rather than a detour.

Two of them will put the card back upside down. Turn it over without saying anything about it. The card facing up matters from week six onwards and not before, and correcting it now costs more than it gains.

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. The adult hands her one card. She returns it to the mat when she is finished.

Back On The Mat · 20 minutes

AIM: Carries her card with her to where she works and keeps it in sight.

Same seat, same mat. Hand the card out as last week, then close your hand around her closed hand for one second so she feels the card being kept rather than carried loosely. Say the line while your hands are still touching. Let go. She will look at the card once more on the way across the room. The block ends when every card has left the mat.

SAY: "Take it with you. Hold it in your hand. Off you go."

The Same Card Twice · 20 minutes

AIM: Puts the card back on the mat in the place it came from before she leaves.

Stand up now and stay standing at the mat, which puts you higher than the returning children and easier to walk towards. Hold both hands behind your back so there is nothing to give the card to. As each child arrives, look at the mat rather than at her hands. The block ends when the mat has cards on it again, in any order, upside down or not.

SAY: "Bring it back. Put it down here. Same place it came from."

If you have more time

Let one child hand the cards out to the others while you sit at the mat. Slots at the start of block one, five minutes.

One line home

Your child put something back where it came from today. Ask her where the card lives.

If you are asked why: a thing that goes back can be used again tomorrow.

You will know it is working when

The card arrives back at the mat in her hand rather than in yours. She looks at the mat when she is finished rather than at you.

Notes: