--- code: EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK2 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: 2 title: What We Need blocks_this_week: 2 minutes_per_block: 25 weekly_minutes: 50 blocks: [{n: 1, title: Bigger Than Your Fist, minutes: 25}, {n: 2, title: Sorting Into Six, minutes: 25}] domains: [PD, M, UW, PSED] objectives: [{domain: PD, text: Picks up a stick with two hands and carries it held low to the pile}, {domain: M, text: Holds a piece against her own fist and says bigger or smaller}, {domain: UW, text: Puts a named piece into the correct pile without being told which}, {domain: PSED, text: Puts back a piece she wanted to keep because it failed the size rule}] materials: [six boxes or six chalk circles on the ground, one spare box for the pieces that go back] space: any ground with fallen material on it, plus a flat place near the door where six piles can stay dry until next week differentiation: {younger: carries one piece at a time to a pile an adult is standing beside, older: checks another child's piece against the size rule and says which pile it belongs in} watching_for: whether a child measures against her own fist rather than an adult's resources: [] version: 1.0 date: 2026-09-04 access: free --- **A BUG HOTEL · OUTDOOR LEARNING** # What We Need **ALL AGES · around 2 to around 6 · TERM 1, WEEK 2 · 2 × 25** | | | :-: | | **DOMAINS:** PD, M, UW, PSED | | **CODE:** EMP-BHTL-L1-T1-WK2 | | **DAY & DATE:** | ## Objectives 1. **PD** Picks up a stick with two hands and carries it held low to the pile. 2. **M** Holds a piece against her own fist and says bigger or smaller. 3. **UW** Puts a named piece into the correct pile without being told which. 4. **PSED** Puts back a piece she wanted to keep because it failed the size rule. ## Before you build This is the week the whole thing can quietly go wrong, and it goes wrong on size. A two year old will put anything in her mouth that fits, and a bug hotel built by a mixed group is full of exactly the things that fit. The rule is on every layer card and it has no exceptions: bigger than a child's fist, or longer than a child's hand. Not your fist. Hers. Teach the measure with her own body and you never have to police it again. Fist out, piece held against it, bigger or smaller. Children who cannot count and children with no shared language with you can both do this, in front of you, correctly, in about four seconds. Set up the spare box for the pieces that go back before you start, not when the first argument happens. The first eight things gathered will all be sticks, because sticks are the easiest thing to see and pick up. You will have a mountain of sticks and no bark at all. Name the six piles out loud as you walk, point at the empty ones, and send the children who have already brought a stick to the empty piles specifically. One child will find something small and perfect and will not give it up. It is usually a smooth stone about the size of the top of her thumb and she has been holding it for ten minutes. Do not make it a battle in front of everyone. Hold the spare box open, wait, and say the rule once. If she still holds it, let her carry it for the rest of the session and put it back at the end with you, alone. She will. ## How we work at the hotel 1. 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. 2. Hands are washed with soap after every session at the hotel, every time, whether a child handled materials or only watched. 3. 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. 4. 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. 5. The hotel is never taken apart to see inside. We look into the gaps that are already there. 6. Every piece used is bigger than a child's fist or longer than a child's hand. Anything smaller goes back on the ground. 7. Sticks with a broken point and bark with a split edge go back on the ground. We use the blunt pieces. 8. 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 ### Bigger Than Your Fist · 25 minutes AIM: Test a piece against your own fist and your own hand and put back everything that fails. Sit the group down before anyone gathers anything. Hold up one stick that passes and one that fails and put them side by side on the ground. Make a fist and hold each one against it in turn. Do it twice more without saying which is which and let them call it. Then hand every child one piece from a pile you have made in advance, half of them passing and half failing. Everybody tests at the same time. The ones that fail go into the spare box, carried there by the child who tested it. This takes longer than it sounds and it is the point of the block. Finish standing, with the spare box held up so everyone can see how full it is. > SAY: "Make a fist. Hold it right next to this one. Bigger than your fist, or smaller?" ### Sorting Into Six · 25 minutes AIM: Gather from the ground and put each piece into the right one of six named piles. Lay the six boxes or draw the six chalk circles in a line before you bring the children out, and name each one aloud as you point: sticks, bark, leaves, grass, tubes, stones. Walk the group past the line once so everybody has seen all six before anyone starts. Before the first pair goes out, say it in your own words: if you turn something over and there is something under it that you were not expecting, you stop, you put your hands behind you, you step back and you call me. Nobody touches it and nobody looks closer. Send them out in twos, not all at once. Each pair brings back one piece, tests it against a fist, and puts it in a pile. Then they go again. Keep the sticks pile in the middle of the line where you can see it filling up faster than the rest, and keep sending children to the empty ends. Stop with ten minutes gone in the piles rather than the ground. Walk the line and name each pile again, with the group counting the pieces in the smallest one. > SAY: "One piece each. Bring it to me first. Then you choose which pile it lives in." ## If you have more time 1. Empty the sticks pile back onto the ground and gather it again looking only for the thickest ones, ten minutes. 2. Count the smallest pile, then set a number to reach before next week and write it on the box. ## One thing for home We gathered and sorted today, and everything had to be bigger than the child's own fist. Ask which pile had the least in it. If you are asked why this is worth doing: sorting by kind is the same skill as sorting anything else, and here it decides whether the thing stands up. ## How you know it is working A child tests a piece against her fist before she picks it up rather than after. Somebody tells another child which pile she is holding, and is right. **Notes:** A Bug Hotel · Produced by Empathy Global · Free to use · © 2026 Empathy Global