This One Or That One

Original lesson metadata

code: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK3
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: 3
title: "This One Or That One"
aim: "Takes one of two cards held out to her and does it."
blocks_this_week: 2
minutes_per_block: 20
weekly_minutes: 40
blocks: [{n: 1, title: "Two In My Hand", minutes: 20}, {n: 2, title: "The One She Did Not Take", minutes: 20}]
domains: [CL, PSED, PD, EAD]
objectives: [{domain: CL, text: "Looks at two cards in turn before choosing."}, {domain: PSED, text: "Takes one of two cards offered and leaves the other."}, {domain: PD, text: "Completes the card she took rather than changing to the other one partway."}, {domain: EAD, text: "Uses the pictured objects in the way the card shows."}]
materials: ["Things To Do cards 1 to 6", "new this week: Tell It Back, Fold The Cloths", "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: "Hold the two cards further apart and lower, at the height of her chest.", older: "Ask her to say which one she left before she walks away."}
watching_for: "Whether her eyes move between the two cards before her hand does."
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 3 · 2 × 20 minutes


DOMAINS: CL, PSED, PD, EAD
CODE: EMP-SCFR-L1-T1-WK3
DAY & DATE:

Objectives

CL Looks at two cards in turn before choosing.
PSED Takes one of two cards offered and leaves the other.
PD Completes the card she took rather than changing to the other one partway.
EAD Uses the pictured objects in the way the card shows.

Before the mat goes down

Do not let the two cards be one interesting card and one dull one. If you hold out Big Paper and Fold The Cloths, every child takes Big Paper and nothing has been chosen. Hold out two she likes about equally, or two she has done about equally often.

You will think choosing is instant. It is not at this age. Expect a wait of five to eight seconds with her eyes going from one card to the other, and expect that wait to feel much longer than it is. Count it in your head if you have to. Do not fill it.

Three of them will take the card on the left every single time this week, whichever card is on the left. That is not a choice about the card, it is a hand reaching to the nearer side. Swap which card you hold on which side halfway through the block and you will see it.

You are not teaching preference. You are teaching that two things can both be true and only one of them gets done now. That is the same skill as putting a toy down to eat, and it is the same skill as waiting for a turn.

The failure is the double take. She will reach for one, touch it, then swap to the other while your hand is still out. Let her. Close your hand around the one she left only after her hand is fully back.

One child will take neither and will look at you steadily. Put both cards down on the mat and step back one pace. She will take one when your hand is not attached to it.

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 holds out two cards. She takes one.

Two In My Hand · 20 minutes

AIM: Looks at both cards in the adult's hand before her hand moves.

Kneel so your hands are at her eye height. Hold one card in each hand, arms apart wider than her shoulders so she has to move her head to see both. Keep both hands completely still. Say the line and then stop talking. Count to eight in your head before you do anything at all. The block ends when every child has looked at both cards, whether or not she has taken one.

SAY: "Two. Look at this one. Now look at this one."

The One She Did Not Take · 20 minutes

AIM: Takes one of the two and does that one, not the other.

Same position on your knees. After she takes one, bring the other hand back in slowly and lay the card she did not take face up on the mat where she can still see it. Do not put it away out of sight. Half the children will look back at it once from across the room. The block ends when both cards are on the mat and the last child has gone.

SAY: "That one. Good. The other one waits here for you."

If you have more time

Hold out the same two cards a second time to a child who has already chosen and see whether she takes the other one. Slots at the end of block two, five minutes.

One line home

Your child chose between two things today and did the one she chose. Ask her which one she left.

If you are asked why: choosing is a skill and it is built one pair at a time.

You will know it is working when

Her eyes move from one card to the other before she reaches. She takes one and does not swap after she has walked away. She can point at the one she did not take. Nobody takes both.

Notes: