Philosophy Diogenes was a Cynic, a group of philosophers in Hellenistic times (c. 323-146 BCE) that dropped out of conventional society much like modern-day hippies. The origin of the word 'cynic' comes from the Greek (via Latin) for 'dog', and has the same root as the English word 'canine'. In this story we explore th...

BACKGROUND Judaism, Christianity and Islam share certain stories and traditions. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son is one of the most well-known. Because it is a story common to the three religions it is often taught in RE. However, it is a bloodthirsty and cruel tale – on the surface of it – and the killing of a c...

Stimulus There was a young man called Jerry, who lived with his mother. One day he decided it was time to move out and get a house of his own. He found a small piece of land to build his house on and ordered 500 bricks, which were delivered to that spot. The next morning Jerry went there with the builders but all the bricks were gon...

A long time ago in Japan, Chen, a Buddhist student, had been studying to reach enlightenment, which is a Buddhist word for ‘understanding’ – something Buddhists try to reach through meditation. He had been trying to reach enlight- enment for many years now, yet he still didn’t feel that he had come anywhere near finding i...

Here’s a Sudanese storyteller’s opener: ‘I’m going to tell a story It’s a lie. But not everything in it is false.’ From Norma J. Livo and Sandra Rietz Storytelling Process and Practice (1986) And here is an extract from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy’s entry on holes: ‘Naive...

This session uses the song 'Bare Necessities' from The Jungle Book.  You may want to use the following clip as a stimulus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ogQ0uge06o   First, show the clip (or play the song).  Then, sing the first verse with the class a couple of times:  'Bare necessities, Those simpl...

Stimulus This is a true story about a girl called Becky who had a very bright idea when she was 10 years old. Becky was just a normal girl and lived with a normal family in a normal town in America. One normal day after school Becky’s mum took her shopping. Her mum had to leave her in the car just for a few minutes while she pop...

Preparation Important: The resource must be downloaded for this session. Also, if you are doing this over a number of weeks, make sure to note which they chose along the way, especially the one you end the session on. This will be important later.   In this session, the class are cast as the Board of Directors of Becky’s comp...

The aim of this lesson plan is to encourage the children to make a distinction between physical and non-physical properties of the mind and/or brain. This encourages them to ‘discover’ abstract nouns in the context of non-abstract entities such as ‘the body’. Plan 1. Read the poem to the class. 2. Give them some si...