This week, a set of “Sticky Questions” and a recommended activity for each one to help deepen children’s thinking.
Everything below is taken from our Sticky Questions School Packs– our unique approach to homework where children take home a juicy philosophical puzzler stuck to their jumper, talk with parents and bring their thoughts back to school.
Sticky Questions: a philosophical question every week, for every class.
They’re flying off the shelves at the moment as schools re-order ahead of September. Don’t miss out – get your order in today. Still unsure?Scroll to the base of this email to learn more about its impact.
Reception (age 4-5)
Recommended activity – Phalanx Philosophy:Divide the space in half and get everyone to stand on one side and come up with as many “Yes’s” as they can. Hear some. Move everyone to the other side to think of “No’s.” Hear some again. Then let everyone choose their half, having heard both sides of the coin.
Year 1 (age 5-6):
Recommended activity – Question Mutation:ask them to choose one word in a question to create a new question that’s just as interesting.
Year 2 (age 6-7):
Recommended activity – Say it in seven: in pairs, get them to boil down their answer to a sentence of exactly seven words.
Year 3 (age 7-8):
Recommended activity – Wandering wonder: listen out for new questions to ask based on what they’re saying. What underlying-questions arise to do with friendship?
Year 4 (age 8-9):
Recommended activity – Pupil faciliators: arm everyone with the following questions and encourage pupils to use them in paired discussion: Can you say why? Can you say more? How do you mean? Can you give an example? Why is that important? How could you disagree with yourself?
Year 5 (age 9-10):
Recommended activity – Devil’s advocate: no matter what a pupil says, gleefully take the opposite opinion and playfully goad them to argue back against you.
Year 6 (age 10-11):
Recommended activity – Step back and unpack: ask the class to zoom in the word or words in the question that need “unpacking” before the question can be answered.
Year 7+ (11+):
Recommended activity – Special guest: ask one or two children to record a conversation with their parents and bring it back into school for the class to hear.
Why buy Sticky Questions for your school?
Let’s ask teachers, parents and teachers at Stichivall School:
“We’ve been working on P4C for 7 years now, and we’ve been through various versions of what it looks like… this has been a really interesting development in taking it out into the wider community.” – Karen Ferguson, Headteacher
“There are some children who might be quieter during our P4C sessions in classtime, but who come back in and are a lot more vocal when doing our Sticky Questions feedback because they’ve had that time to rehearse ideas.” – Emily Miller – Year 5/6 teacher
“We’ve discussed something earlier in the week, and later on she’s thought about it again and come up with another perspective which I think is quite clever!” – Parent
September INSET
We’re both booked up for the most popular days in September, but if your INSET falls between 6-8th September and are looking for motivating training that makes a real difference to teaching and learning, get in touch. Go to www.thephilosophyman.com/p4c-training or just reply directly to this email.
Best wishes,
Tom and Jason
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