OuiSi · Descriptive language

Five senses from one card

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Grades K–5 Teaching 20 min Plus 2 to set out, 2 to clear Class any size Set any Prep none

set out 2′ Look, quietly 3′ What can you hear 5′ The other three 8′ Close 4′ clear 2′

Goal: Children work outward from one picture into sound, smell, texture, and taste — building sensory vocabulary and settling the room at the same time.
Materials: One OuiSi Photo-Card set. One card per child. Paper optional.

K–1: One thing you can see and one thing you might hear. Steps 1, 2 and close — about 12 min.
Grades 2–3: All four steps, three senses in step 3 — the full 20 min.
Grades 4–5: All five senses, and turn the list into a short poem at the close.

1 · Look, quietly

3 min

Each child takes one card. Everyone stays at their own seat.

Look at your card without saying anything. Find three things in it you did not see at first.

Three, not one. The first thing is obvious and the third one takes real looking, which is what slows the room down.

2 · What can you hear

5 min

You are inside this picture now. What are three sounds you can hear?

Nothing in the picture makes a sound on its own, so every answer is invented from visual evidence. Wind, because of how the grass leans. That inference is the work.

Take four or five answers from around the room. Do not go round everybody.

3 · The other three

8 min

Move through the remaining senses, about two minutes each. Skip any that stalls — not every card has a taste.

What can you smell?

If you put your hand on it, what would it feel like?

Is there anything here you could taste? If not, say so.

Permission to say no matters. A child who announces that nothing here is edible has reasoned correctly, and should be told so.

To anyone who wants more.

Which sense was easiest for your card? Which was impossible?

4 · Close

4 min

Say one sentence about your card that uses a sense other than seeing.

Four or five children, then stop. If you want it written down, this sentence is the one worth keeping.

Watch for

Answers with no evidence. It smells like cake, from a picture of a rock. Ask what in the picture makes them say so, and let the answer be imaginative as long as it points at something.
Forcing all five. Some cards genuinely have no taste and no smell. Naming that is better thinking than inventing one.
Speeding up. This works because it is slow. If the room is restless, cut a sense rather than rushing the ones you keep.
Children who like rules may want to know if their answer is right. Nobody can check, and saying that plainly helps.

Adapt

As a calming reset — steps one and two only, six minutes, no sharing at all.
Writing lesson — children write one line per sense, and the five lines become a poem with no further work.
Multilingual learners — sensory words are concrete and memorable. Accept any language and put both words on the board.
Speech and language — one word per sense is a full answer. Gesture counts for touch.
Autistic children — be ready for strong responses to sensory content, and let a child skip a sense without explaining.
Anxiety — nothing here requires speaking. Looking through all five privately is a complete version.

Curriculum links. Sustained observation of a single image · Generating sensory vocabulary for hearing, smell, touch, and taste · Judging what an image can and cannot supply · Composing a sentence from a sense other than sight.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.

From OuiSense. The sensory ladder, used for descriptive vocabulary as well as calm.
Screen-free. No codes and no devices. Works with any OuiSi Photo-Card set.