How today feels
Beta- Goal
- Children name a feeling through an image rather than a word, and practice speaking from a point of view that is not their own.
- Materials
- One OuiSi Photo-Card set. One card per child.
- Grades 1–2
- Steps 1 and 2, then close. One thing you can see in the card is a full answer — about 18 min.
- Grades 3–5
- All four steps, including speaking from inside the picture — the full 25 min.
1 · Choose, say nothing
5 minSpread the cards face up. Each child takes one.
Take the card that matches how today feels so far. Do not explain it to anyone yet.
The silence is deliberate. A child who has already said it out loud has nothing left to choose to share.
2 · Tell one person
8 minChildren pair up, one card each.
Show your partner your card. You can tell them why you chose it, or tell them one thing you notice in it, or just show it and say nothing. Any of those is the whole job.
Three ways in, all of them complete. Naming them out loud is what makes the honest answers voluntary — a child who only shows the card has done the activity correctly, and must never be asked for more.
After both have shown their cards, one offer each way. Not a question.
Anything else you want to say about it? You can say no.
Do not use and what else here. It is a good question almost everywhere and the wrong one in this lesson — pressed on a child who has deliberately said very little, it reads as digging.
3 · Speak from inside
7 minPartners swap cards. Nobody explains anything about the card they are handing over.
You are holding your partner's card. Say one sentence as something inside that picture. Not about it — from inside it.
You are giving a voice to something in the photograph. You are not saying anything about how your partner feels.
Say that second line every time. Without it some children read the step as a guess about their partner, which is the one thing this lesson is built to avoid. A child might speak as the water, the bird, the light, or the crack in the wall. All of it counts, and this is where the quietest children often say the most, because the card is doing the talking.
4 · Close
5 minWhich card did you keep coming back to? What about it?
Ask the room, take two or three answers, and stop. Nobody has to speak.
Watch for
- Never require disclosure. It looked right is a complete answer and must be treated as one. A child who picks a card for no reason at all has done the activity correctly.
- Something heavier than you planned for. Images reach things words defend. Decide in advance how you will respond and who you would tell, and follow your setting's safeguarding policy.
- Pairing. Choose the pairs yourself, or pair by who is sitting where. Letting children choose partners for this one tends to leave somebody out.
- No whole-class share of the choice. Step four asks about cards, not feelings, on purpose.
Adapt
- Anxiety and trauma-sensitive settings — stop after step three. Skip the closing question entirely if the room is tender.
- Speech and language — holding the card up and pointing is a full answer in every step.
- Autistic children — a concrete answer, such as it is the same color as my coat, is a real answer. Do not fish for feeling words.
- Multilingual learners — any language, throughout. The card carries what the words would.
- Counseling and therapy settings — the card lets a person raise a topic without naming it first. Follow their lead rather than the timings here.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.
Also works as a morning check-in that takes four minutes, using step one and step two only.