OuiSi · Science

What it does

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Grades 1–2 Teaching 30 min Plus 2 to set out, 2 to clear Class any size Set any Prep none

set out 2′ Two words 6′ Sort by what they look like 8′ Sort the same cards by what they do 11′ Close 5′ clear 2′

Goal: Children sort cards by what things look like, then sort the very same cards by what things do — and find that the two answers are not the same.
Materials: One OuiSi Photo-Card set, about ten cards per group of four.

Grade 1: Two piles each time, named out loud rather than written — the full 30 min
Grade 2: Three piles, written labels, and find the cards that moved — the full 30 min

1 · Two words

6 min

Hold up one card with something clearly structured in it — a leaf, a shell, a wall.

Tell me what this looks like.

Take two or three answers. Then the harder one.

Now tell me what it does.

Children find the second question much harder and often have to guess. Guessing is the work — but say might with them, because a job read off a shape is a good guess and not yet a fact.

2 · Sort by what they look like

8 min

Groups of four, about ten cards.

Put these in piles by what they look like. Round things, flat things, spiky things — you choose.

Before they sweep the cards up, make them say the piles out loud.

Tell me your pile names. Say them loudly so you remember them.

Grade 2 can write the names on scrap paper. Grade 1 saying them aloud is enough, and holding them in memory is part of the work.

3 · Sort the same cards by what they do

11 min

Same cards. Mix them up and sort again — this time by what the thing does.

Offer starting words if a group stalls.

Holds something. Keeps water out. Catches the light. Moves.

If you cannot tell what something does, put it in a not sure yet pile. That is allowed.

Without that pile a child invents a job to finish the task. Plenty of cards are texture or landscape and have no job to find.

Then the question the lesson exists for.

Which cards ended up with different neighbors this time? Pull those out and put them in the middle.

A card that sorts one way by looks and another way by job is the whole idea arriving. Two things can look nothing alike and still do the same thing.

4 · Close

5 min

Show me two cards that look completely different but do the same job.

Two or three groups, holding the cards up. Then stop.

Watch for

Function collapsing into naming. It is a leaf names it, it does not say what it does. Keep asking until the answer is a doing word.
I don't know what it is. Not a barrier at all. What it looks like is fully visible, and a sensible guess at the job is exactly the skill.
Forgetting the first piles. Grade 1 will. That is why they say the names out loud, and why grade 2 writes them down.
Piles of one. If every card has its own pile, ask for three piles at most and the categories tighten themselves.

Adapt

Grade 1 — two piles each round, spoken names, and six cards rather than ten.
Grade 2 — written labels, and ask which sorting told them more about the cards.
Multilingual learners — pile names in any language. A doing word is often easier than an object name.
Autistic children — a very literal category is a correct one. Let a strict rule stand instead of asking for a looser one.
Tie to a unit — give the function categories yourself to match what you are teaching.
Finished early — find a card that could go in two different job piles.

Curriculum links. Separating what a thing looks like from what it does · Sorting by a self-chosen visual attribute · Re-sorting the same cards by function · Naming your categories and holding them · Finding unlike things that share a job.
Standard codes vary by state and district — these are the skills exercised, for you to map to your own.

For grades 3–5 see Form and function, which adds causal chains — if this changes, then that changes.
Screen-free. No codes and no devices. Works with any OuiSi Photo-Card set.