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...

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...

BACKGROUND Cultural Relativism is the idea that what seems right and good to any individual depends on their culture. Whatever we have grown up with, and are surrounded by, seems normal, right and good. We may disagree with some of the things that are believed in our society, but overall we should not be surprised if people from different cul...

Stimulus Describe (and draw) the following two scenarios: Scenario A: You see someone walking along and next to you is a plank of wood. They are not looking where they are going. You decide to place the plank of wood in front of the person so that they will trip over. You do this and they don’t notice and they trip over and hurt them...

Key ideas Rights over our own body. Healthy eating. Self-treatment. Government responsibility. Stimulus Imagine you are in a land when everyone who lives there is nice to each other. If you fall over they help you up. They never hurt each other or shout at each other. One day the people of this land discover a new type of food called sl...

Set the class the following task: to invent (or simply to name) something that people will need but not want, something they will want but not need, and something they will want and need. Conceptual comparison exercise Task Question: What are the differences/similarities between ‘need’ and ‘want’? Place two ho...

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 ...

Set-up This session is particularly appropriate for classes who need practise speaking and listening to each other. Draw a fairly fleshed-out character on the board, including features such as hair, fingers and shoes. This is your friend, they are all the things you like in a friend. However, we don't know what they are yet s...

STIMULUS This is the story of a goddess called Parvati and her elephant-headed son, Ganesha. Parvati was alone in the house and feeling sad. Her husband, the mighty god Shiva, was away from home. For a long time she had been hoping to have another child but no baby ever came. To cure her loneliness, she used mud and dirt on the ground to buil...