You are going to need the book 'Blue Penguin' by Petr Horacek for this session. Blue Penguin isn’t like all the other penguins. Surprisingly enough, he’s blue! But he can still do all the things that other penguins can do. So is he still a penguin? Will he be able to fit in with all the others? Task Questi...

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...

Session: Plan around ‘Dragons and Giants’ (In Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel) making use of ‘The Hokey Kokey’ method (in [concrete], out [abstract], in again [test abstract against concrete) (see Once Upon an If for full explanation): 1) Read story up to “‘Yes, but are we (brave)?’ asked To...

Your are going to need the book 'Dr Xargle's Book Of Earth Hounds' by Jeanne Willis for this session. Dr Xargle is teaching the class today about Earth Hounds… with sharp fangs at one end, and a waggler at the other, but what creature are the aliens learning about?  What is an Earthling?  And what is an Earthlet...

You are going to need the book 'Elmar' by David McKee for this session. All the elephants look the same, well mostly the same, and mostly the same colour at least. Elmer is an elephant too, but he’s multi-coloured and looks very different to all the other elephants. He’s also the one that makes them all laugh. But what s...

Session developed by Matt Harvey. These stories are from the Feel Brave Series, written by Avril McDonald. The Grand Wolf Themes: Death, change When the Wise Owl tells Wolfgang that his grandfather has died I ask the children “what does that mean, that Grand wolf has died?” This is more a case of breaking the circle ...

This session is based on the book 'Frog is a hero' by Max Velthuijs When it starts raining, frog is excited. When it’s still raining a few days later, he starts to get scared. His house is flooded, and his friends’ houses are flooded too. Where can he find safety?And who will help when all the food runs out? It’s t...

This session is based on the story book The Little Red Hen and was devised by Steve Hoggins. The in this version is that the characters take opposite positions. One helps and the other doesn’t. Key ideas: When are you obliged to help people? Do some people deserve more than others? Resources: 3 puppets Start...

Giraffe is hungry! She goes shopping for ingredients to make a pizza, but the bag is just too heavy for her to carry home by herself. Can someone help her? And it’s a lot of work doing all the cooking, do you think anyone will help her cook the pizza? Task Questions 1: If bear says ‘no’, is that OK? Why do you th...