OuiSi · Critical thinking and enrichment

How many ways

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Grades 3–5 Teaching 40 min Plus 3 to set out, 2 to clear Class any size Set any Prep none

set out 3′ How many 8′ How different 10′ How rare 10′ Fewest rules 8′ Close 4′ clear 2′

Goal: Children generate many connections, sort them into kinds, find the one nobody else saw, and then decide the rules for what counts at all.
Materials: One OuiSi Photo-Card set. Two cards per pair, plus paper to list on.

Grade 3: Steps 1, 2 and close. How many, then how many kinds — about 22 min.
Grade 4: Add step 3, the rare one, compared in fours — about 32 min.
Grade 5: All five steps, including writing the rules — the full 40 min.

1 · How many

8 min

Each pair takes two cards and a sheet of paper.

List every connection you can find between these two cards. Do not stop at the obvious ones.

At about five minutes, when the lists slow down, interrupt once.

When you think you are finished, find three more.

The three after finished are the interesting ones. Say it to the whole room at once, not pair by pair.

2 · How different

10 min

Sort your list into kinds. Color is one kind. Shape is another. You decide what the kinds are, and you decide how many.

Then the question that separates a long list from a wide one.

How many different kinds did you find? Not how many connections — how many kinds.

One pair found more connections. Another found more kinds of connection. Those are two different things to be good at.

Neither is the better list. A long list is fluency, a wide list is flexibility, and children are usually strong at one. You are naming the second, because it goes unnoticed.

Then point the room at whichever one they are not doing.

Which of those two are you better at? Spend the next few minutes on the other one.

3 · How rare

10 min

Choose the one connection on your list you think nobody else found.

Pairs join into fours and compare just those two.

Did the other pair have yours? If they did, pick another and try again.

Keep it in fours. Round the whole class, fifteen pairs eat the ten minutes and a child whose idea turns out to be common finds out in front of everybody.

Then take three or four to the room, chosen by you.

Read us one that survived.

You choose which, which means you can pick a pair who needs the win rather than the pair who shouts first.

4 · Fewest rules

8 min

Pairs join into fours.

Decide the fewest rules we would need for a connection to count. Write them down. Fewest — not best.

Your rules have to do a job: another group should be able to use them to decide whether a connection counts, without asking you.

Without it, anything counts wins on fewest rules. The rules have to separate something from something.

Now test your rules against another group's list. Does anything break?

Usually something does, and that argument is the most valuable four minutes in the lesson — protect it rather than resolving it. If nothing breaks their rules are too loose, so hand them a connection you think should not count.

5 · Close

4 min

Which rule did your group argue about longest?

Watch for

Long lists mistaken for the only goal. Step two exists to put a second goal beside the first. Name both as real achievements — a child who produced twenty connections has done something, and the job is to show them the other direction, not to take the twenty away.
The child who wants the right answer. There is not one. Keep handing the question back, and give them step four early if they need structure — writing the rules is the right-answer work.
Groups resolving the edge case too fast. Slow them down. Unresolved is a fine place to end.

Adapt

Children who think faster than they write — separate the thinking from the writing. Let a child dictate the list to a partner, or show the connection with the cards before putting it in words.
Attention and ADHD — this lesson has five short phases on purpose. Stand for steps three and four.
Multilingual learners — list in any language. Kinds translate even when the items do not.
Wide ability range — mixed pairs work better than matched ones here, because there is no answer key to fall behind on.
Want it harder — ban the most popular kind, usually color, before step one begins.

Curriculum links. Generating responses past the obvious ones · Sorting responses into self-defined categories · Separating how many from how many kinds · Writing the fewest rules that settle a decision · Testing those rules against another group's work.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.

A note on the vocabulary. How many, how different, and how rare correspond to fluency, flexibility, and originality — ordinary terms from education research, and useful ones if you report against an enrichment framework. This is a lesson, not an assessment, and it should never be used to screen or place a child.
Screen-free. No codes and no devices. Works with any OuiSi Photo-Card set.