Curriculum / Sensory Play & Exploration / module 1

Texture Treasure Basket

By OSH Founding Team✓ Verified by OSH Review Panel

The child explores a basket of safe household objects with different textures, learning to describe and compare what they feel.

Parent guide (what to say and do)

Sit with your child on the floor. Say: 'Let us find out what is inside.' Let the child pick each object. Ask: 'Is it soft or hard? Rough or smooth? Warm or cold?' Repeat the child's words back and add one new describing word each time. Do not correct; extend. End by asking the child to find their favourite object and tell you why.

Learning material

Any 8 to 10 household objects with distinct textures (wooden spoon, sponge, cotton ball, metal key, smooth stone, fabric scraps)
Optional: a printed picture card set of texture words

Practical exercises and activities

Indoor: blindfold-free feely game, sorting objects into soft and hard piles. Outdoor: texture walk in the yard or street, touching tree bark, leaves, walls, and grass, collecting three safe objects to add to the basket.

Materials required

One basket or box, 8 to 10 safe household objects. Cost: zero, everything is found at home.

Assessment checkpoints

Child names at least four texture words unprompted. Child sorts six objects into two groups by a property they choose themselves.

Learn with AI

Ready-made prompts for this module. Copy one into your AI assistant and it becomes a patient tutor that follows the OSH method: no lecturing, no rote learning, hands-on activities included.

For the student

A tutor that teaches this module step by step, asks questions, and never just gives answers.

For the parent or teacher

A coach that helps you prepare, deliver, and troubleshoot this lesson.

How to set this up in ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude

ChatGPT: Open ChatGPT → press your profile → My GPTs → Create a GPT → paste the prompt into Instructions → name it after the module → save for repeated lessons. Or simply paste the prompt at the start of a new chat.

Gemini: Open Gemini → Gems panel → New Gem → paste the prompt into the instructions box → name it after the module → save. The Gem stays available for every study session.

Claude: Open Claude → create a Project (or a Skill in Claude Code) → paste the prompt into the project instructions → every conversation in that project becomes a tutoring session for this module.

Safety note: children under 13 should use AI assistants together with a parent, and account age rules of each platform apply.

This module is part of the open OSH curriculum, licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0. Print it, adapt it, share it.