Stimulus  One day, a brother and sister move with their family into a new house. They share a big bedroom right up in the attic at the top of the house. The room has a window that opens through the roof. Each night, when it’s time to go to bed the two children open the window and look out. They can see birds sitting high up in...

Simulus This session arose when I was given a ‘top’ English group to do some philosophy. It started when I overheard the following: Unidentified child: “There’s more girls in this group, so girls must be cleverer than boys”  Angry retort: “That’s sexist!” Use the above anecdote as yo...

Stimulus Tell the story: Seven hundred years ago, the King of England attacked the french town of Calais. Calais is the nearest French town to England. If you have travelled from England to France you may have gone through Calais. King Edward was angry because the town of Calais was not doing enough to stop pirates from sailing over f...

You are going to need the book 'Cheese belongs to you' by Alexis Deacon for this session.  According to rat law, if you found it, you own the cheese? But if someone bigger wants it, its theirs... but what if there’s a scarier rat who wants it? Who gets the cheese? Task Questions: Whose cheese is it? Is it fai...

Activity Make a table with 2 columns on the board. Label the 2 columns 'Choice' and 'not a choice' Give each pair a statement Blinking Sneezing Forgiving someone Dreaming about cake Getting angry Being free Feeling happy Being British Hitting someone Winning Cheating Going to school Liking math...

Main idea: What is Christmas? What are the things that make it Christmas and what would it still be Christmas if certain things were missing Main strategy: What’s needed and what’s enough? (The If Machine, p33) Examination of the essential properties of a thing can be conducted with two questions e.g: What is needed for a...

By Peter Worley.  Here’s a new session I’ve been running recently and having a great deal of success with. Especially if you include at least one of the extension activities, the children really enjoy this, so if you find yourself needing something a bit more fun towards the end of term/year, this should fit the bill. When do...

One of our specialists had an interesting session about competition. The children were talking about a football match: "I was gutted when my team lost". So the facilitator invited them to explain why... "because they were supposed to win" a few contributions later..."You are not supposed to win you are supposed to g...

Project or print out and show the class 'Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump' by Joseph Wright (easily google-able, and attached as a downloadable document below). Looking How many people are there in this picture? What are they looking at? Is anyone excited? Is anyone scared? Is anyone happy or sad? Are you surp...