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...

You are going to need the book 'Du iz tak?' by Carson Ellis for this session.  The bugs are looking curious. They’ve found something, but what is it? And what are they saying? “Du iz tak?” Task Questions: Are the bugs talking? Can you work out what they are saying? Is their treehouse safe? Is ...

Stimulus: By Steven Hoggins Jeff (the children chose the names) is playing ball outside and kicks it through a window. The owner comes out and says: "Did you break my window?" Jeff responds with, “no." Task Questions:  Did Jeff lie? What makes it a lie/not a lie? The children talked abo...

You are going to need the book 'Knuffle Bunny' by Mo Willems for this session.  Trixie and her knuffle bunny are going with Daddy to the Laundromat. Using the washing machine is fun and then it’s time to go home, but hang on... something’s wrong. Trixie wants to say something, but Daddy doesn’t understand. ...

* This session uses a Pollock picture. There is one downloadable at the bottom or find your own image that would work! Looking Are there any objects in this painting? Are there emotions in this painting? Is there anything in this painting? Thinking Starter Question: Does this painting make sense? Q...

IS THIS A POEM? This is a session came out of a unit of work on poetry. The class had being doing philosophy for 16 weeks and were doing a unit of poetry in their English classes.  Ever since Socrates, philosophers have tried to define terms clearly and exhaustively. This has resulted in a good deal of rigour and precision. Philosophe...

The aim of this lesson is for the children to practise their thinking using the topic of friendship. Perhaps most importantly, friendship is an important concept for all young people. They think a lot about who their friends really are and what being a friend means. So this poem works well to get a discussion going that includes everyone, regard...

Dialogues have a long relationship with thinking. Probably the most famous philosophical dialogues were those written by Plato approximately 2500 years ago, though the genre has been found even earlier with the Sumerian Disputations and the Indian Vedas. Almost all of Plato’s philosophical writing was written in this form. The word dialogu...