Slide outline for Lesson 3.18, three days. Slides 1 to 11 are Day 1 (the brief and the plan). Slides 12 to 19 are Day 2 (build, parent card, safety check). Slides 20 to 28 are Day 3 (test, demo, Family Showcase, submit). No real child is used to test any kit, and no child is observed or photographed. A partner plays the age from the chart. The choke test tube sits on every table all three days.
Project: Babysitter's Activity Kit
- Lesson 3.18, Day 1: Families and Caring for Others
- Unit 3: Growing Up, Getting Along
- Do now: one thing a three year old can do that a two year old cannot
- Then one thing a five year old can do that a three year old cannot
Teacher notes
Take four. Sort them on the board into physical, social, emotional, intellectual. How many need the chart retaught tells you whether Step 2 runs six minutes or four.
You are building something a real babysitter would bring
- Safe
- Under $5 from the bin price list
- Fits one child's age exactly
- Pick your child
- Three days: plan today, build tomorrow, test and show on day three
Teacher notes
Image: a zip-top bag, a paper plate craft, and a set of index cards laid out on a table, nothing fancy.
The brief
- Design one activity for a child of one age from 2 to 6
- It builds one thing that child is working on, in one development area
- It comes with a parent instruction card
- It passes a ten-line safety checklist
- It gets tested, revised, and demoed in two minutes
Teacher notes
Hand out the project sheet and the rubric now. Read the brief aloud. Five criteria, 20 points, labs and projects category.
The kit menu: pick one
- Sensory bag: sealed, squishy, things to find
- Story with props: a short story you tell with three or four objects
- Sorting game: by color, size, or shape, with a container
- Movement game: a path, a hop, a follow-the-leader card set
- Simple craft: a paper plate animal, a yarn-wrapped stick
Teacher notes
Image: five small drawings in a row, one per kit type.
Grade 6 chooses from sensory bag, sorting game, or simple craft, for a 3 or 4 year old. Everyone picks a second choice in case the first does not fit the age.
Criteria and constraints
- Criteria: fits the age, builds one area, safe, under $5, has a parent card
- Constraints: bin materials only. No food
- Ages 2 to 3: nothing loose that fits through the tube
- Ages 4 to 6: small pieces are allowed, marked "with an adult" on the card
- Built in one period. Alone or with a partner, your choice
Teacher notes
Image: two columns, one headed criteria with five checkmarks, one headed constraints with five small locks.
The tube is on the table. Say the tube rule today, tomorrow, and on day three.
This is the design process
- Define the problem
- Define the criteria the finished design must meet
- Build a prototype
- Test and evaluate it against the criteria
- Today is define and plan. Tomorrow is build. Day three is test
Teacher notes
These are the PSI Design Process lines. Name them; the same four steps show up in every project this year.
Find your age on the chart
- Four areas: physical, social, emotional, intellectual
- Pick one line from the chart for your age
- Your kit builds that one thing. Not four things. One
- Write the area and the one thing on the plan
Teacher notes
Image: the ages and stages grid from the handout, ages 2 to 6 down the side, four areas across.
[Sal: confirm the chart lines against the CDC "Learn the Signs. Act Early." checklists before printing.]
One that fits, one that does not
- Sorting by color fits a 3 year old: naming colors, matching one to one
- The same game bores a 6 year old, unless it becomes sorting by two rules
- A movement path with "hop, then crawl" fits a 4 year old's gross motor work
- The same path is too hard for a 2 year old, who is still learning to run and climb
- Question for your plan: what is your child working on in the area you picked?
Teacher notes
The common mistake is a kit that is really for a 13 year old. The question that fixes it: what would a three year old do with this in the first ten seconds?
The plan template
- The age, the area, the one thing the child is working on
- The kit type and the kit's name
- What the child does with it, in three steps
- Why this age and not one older or younger
- Materials priced from the bin list, total under $5
- First safety check: what could go wrong, and what stops it
Teacher notes
15 minutes. Circulate and sign plans that pass. A plan over $5 or failing the tube rule gets a question, not a no.
Pricing and the tube rule
- The bin price list is on the wall. Price from the list, not from a store
- Write the quantity and the cost for every material
- Total has to be under $5.00
- Check the box: age 2 or 3, nothing loose fits through the tube; or age 4 to 6, small pieces are on the card as "with an adult"
- Get my signature before you leave
Teacher notes
Image: a posted price list with a few items and prices, and a tube standing next to a pom-pom.
Day 1 exit line and tomorrow
- On the plan: "The one thing my kit builds is ___ because a ___ year old is working on ___"
- Two students read theirs
- Hand in the plan. Plans stay in the room
- Tomorrow: 18 minutes to build, then the parent card, then the safety check twice
Teacher notes
A plan that is not signed today finishes at the start of Day 2, and that build gets 15 minutes instead of 18.
Day 2: Build it
- Lesson 3.18, Day 2
- Do now: look at your plan. Write the one line on the safety checklist you are most worried your kit will fail
- Then build it so that line passes
Teacher notes
Take three. Hand back signed plans as students write.
Build rules
- Bin materials only, against your plan's list
- The tube is on your table. Anything loose that fits through it is sealed or gone (ages 2 to 3) or on the card as "with an adult" (ages 4 to 6)
- Child-safe scissors, cutting done seated
- Tape and glue. No staples
- You may change the plan. Write the change on the plan
- Build first, card second
Teacher notes
[Sal: no balloons in the bin; check latex allergies. Beans or rice stay sealed, double-bagged, and taped on every edge.]
What finished looks like
- One example of each of the five kit types
- Simple. Flat. Sealed. Labeled
- None of these took longer than 18 minutes
Teacher notes
Image: five photographs or drawings, one per kit type, each with its parent card propped in front of it.
A photo on the slide is enough. Keep this slide to under a minute; they need the build time.
Build: 18 minutes
- Gather from the bin against your list
- Build what your plan says, or write the change
- I will answer "will this work" with "what does your plan say the child is working on?"
- I call time at 18 minutes for the card
Teacher notes
Clipboard: building what the plan says or wrote the change; tube rule handled; card in plain language with three steps.
The parent card
- Kit name, and the age it is for
- What it builds: one sentence a parent would understand
- How to use it: three steps, plain language
- Safety: what to watch for, what the child should not do alone
- Cleanup: one line. Made by: first name or initials only
Teacher notes
Image: a blank index card with the nine lines labeled.
A picture card counts: draw the three steps, one word each, plus a safety drawing. Cards may be written in two languages, which a real parent might want.
A bad card and a good one
- Bad: "Builds fine motor skills and sensory processing. Let the child explore the materials in a developmentally appropriate way"
- Good: "Squish Bag. For a 2 year old. Helps your child use their fingers to push and pinch, which gets their hands ready for holding a crayon"
- "1. Put the bag flat on the table. 2. Ask your child to find the red button and push it to the corner. 3. Ask for the blue one"
- "Safety: the bag is sealed and taped; if it leaks, take it away. Do not let your child bite the bag. Cleanup: wipe the table"
Teacher notes
The test for a card: could a parent run the activity from it in one minute? A card that says "builds fine motor skills" and nothing else gets the question "what would a parent see the child doing?"
The safety checklist, run it twice
- Ten lines. You initial each one, then a partner initials it again
- The two students forget: line 7, no strings or cords longer than 7 inches, and line 9, glue dry and tape edges pressed down
- A line that fails gets fixed now, or noted on the plan for tomorrow
- Line 1 is the one that caps your score if it fails at the showcase
Teacher notes
Image: the ten-line checklist with two initial columns.
Yarn-wrapped sticks and story props with string are the usual line 7 failures.
Day 2 closure
- Store the kit with the plan and the card, labeled
- What is one line on the checklist your partner caught that you missed?
- Tomorrow: your partner becomes a child of your kit's age, for three minutes
Teacher notes
Two students answer. If cards are not done, they finish at the start of Day 3 and the test gets 8 minutes instead of 10.
Day 3: Test, demo, showcase
- Lesson 3.18, Day 3
- Do now: your partner is about to become a child of the age you chose
- Write one thing a child that age might do with your kit that you did not plan for
Teacher notes
Take three. Then: that is the test. Then the showcase.
The test
- Partner A hands the kit and the card to Partner B
- Partner B plays a child of the kit's age for three minutes
- Partner A watches and does not help. Not once
- Then switch
- 10 minutes for both tests and the notes
Teacher notes
No real child is used, ever. The partner plays the age from the chart.
How to play the age
- The ages and stages chart is your script
- Do what a child that age would do. No more, no less
- A 3 year old asks "why." A 4 year old wants to win
- A 2 year old would try to put a piece in their mouth: pretend, and that piece should not be in the kit anyway
- A 5 year old follows the rules and then changes them
Teacher notes
Image: the chart with one row highlighted and a small figure beside it.
Playing it too smart is the most common tester mistake. A tester who "just plays nicely" is not testing.
Write the test notes and change one thing
- What worked
- What did not work
- One change
- Make the change now if it takes under two minutes
- A blank "one change" means the test was not hard enough
Teacher notes
Send that partner back as a harder child of the same age.
Set up the Family Showcase
- Kits go on the counter under the age signs: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
- The parent card stands in front of the kit
- The tradition cards from Lesson 3.15 go on the wall above, name optional
- Plan and checklist stay with the kit
Teacher notes
Image: a counter with five age signs, kits under each, cards propped in front, tradition cards on the wall above.
The two-minute demo
- In the posted order, standing at your kit
- Say: the age, the area, what the child does with it
- One safety line
- What changed after the test
- Two minutes. I score criteria 4 and 5 live
Teacher notes
Grade 6 demos run one minute. A student may demo to me at the table instead of to the class. [Sal: with more than 16 students, run two demo lines with a student timekeeper, or score the last few from the card and the kit alone, which the rubric allows.]
While you are not presenting
- Walk the showcase
- Gallery card: one kit you would bring to a real babysitting job
- Name the kit, not the maker
- Say why: age fit, safety, or the card
Teacher notes
20 minutes covers the demos and the walk together. Keep the order moving.
Self-assess and submit
- Score yourself on all five rubric criteria
- One sentence of evidence for each. Evidence, not an opinion
- Submit together: the kit, the parent card, the plan with the test notes, the safety checklist, the self-assessment
Teacher notes
The self-assessment row is filled before I score. 5 minutes.
Questions, one round of voice, and tomorrow
- Your partner playing a 2 year old put the kit in their mouth. Was that the tester's fault or the kit's?
- Why does the parent card have to be in plain language when you know the real words?
- If a parent asked "why this and not a tablet," what would you say?
- Three students: one kit from the showcase, by its name, that you would bring to a real job, and why
- Tomorrow: careers in human services and education, then the Unit 3 Test in the last 20 minutes
Teacher notes
Say the test timing out loud today so nobody is surprised. The kits can stay on display for the rest of the unit.