Sue Dixon: Thinking Warmups

Developing Thinking Skills: Little and Often

• Prioritizing• Categorizing• Giving reasons• Making connections• Prediction skills – cause and consequence• Making logical / sensible decisions• Being able to interpret a situation or sift

information to come to a reasonable conclusion. (links with emotional intelligence)

• Developing imagination and creativity – coping with questions that have no one right answer

Quick fire ‘get the brain going’Think of:• Something a fireman does• The name of a flowering plant• The name and number of someone you’d call in an

emergency• An addition problem that has 21 as the answer• Five letters of the alphabet in sequence• Five things that are blue• A fraction that is less than three quarters• Something that runs• Something that is GIGANTIC• Something that has big ears• A type of shelter for an animal or person• 3 foods that are healthy• 5 things that spin• 10 things that are red• 5 things you cannot wash

Ask ‘good’ questionsTurn closed questions into open ones:

What is 5 + 7? vs What questions could 12 be the answer to?

What is this animal called? Vs How many different mammals can you think of? What do they all have in common?

What shape is this? Vs Can you draw four rectangles and compare with someone elses?

‘Choose between’

• What would you choose?• Stories or songs?• To be able to fly or do magic?• 2 mouths or 2 noses?• To have presents or cuddles?• To have lots of friends or be rich?• Pay more tax or have fewer public

services?

‘What if ?’• You could choose what age to be

for the next ten years?• You knew when you were going to

die?• All the door handles turned to

chocolate overnight?• You had to perform in a circus –

which act would you be?• There was no such thing as Time?

First steps to innovation‘What would happen if…’

Jack took something other than beans home to his mum?

Snow White changed her name to Snow Black? Red Riding Hood had a sister called Bossy

Blue Bonnet? Goldilocks turns out to be a serial burglar – a

newspaper puts out a ‘Wanted’ advert for her.

What if the seven dwarfs were giants? Cinderella turns the prince’s offer of marriage down

– what happens in her life for the next 5 years?

Thinking about words & sentences

Playing with language- making choices.

Put these words in order of ‘strength’: cross, unhappy, despair, displeased, sad, miserable, gloomy, sorrowful, broken-hearted

Thinking about words & sentencesPlaying with language- making choices.

Add something to the beginning of this sentence to change its meaning:

Sally hit her friend.

After she had listened carefully, Sally hit her friend.

Whilst rushing from the room, Sally hit her friend.

Like a crazed animal, Sally hit her friend.

Thinking about words & sentencesPlaying with language- making choices.

Or to the end of the sentence:

Sally hit her friend but kissed her dog.

Sally hit her friend and ran away to the circus.

Sally hit her friend, laughed at the crowd before walking smartly down the corridor.

Investigating grammar

Make as many sentences as you can using the word ‘light’

The street light was off all night.Light the fire please.I prefer the light blue dress.I think we got off lightly, don’t you?

Imagine a scene:

A teacher, a pupil and a policeman in the headteacher’s office.Write a speech bubble for each of them.

Building up a bank of ideas through short bursts of thinking and writing

List 5 things you might find in the bag of :

A burglarThe queenA comedian

Building up a bank of ideas through short bursts of thinking and writing

Good lie /bad lieA powerful but ugly queen asks you, ‘Who is the fairest of them all?’ If you tell the truth she might chop your head off so you say, ‘You are the most beautiful woman in the world.’

You see two little children running down the street and then hiding in the bushes. A bigger boy then comes along (someone you know is a bit of a bully) and asks you if you’ve seen two children go past. You say you haven’t seen anything.

At home you eat some cake that your mum was keeping for tea. She asks you if you ate it. You say your brother ate it.

Building up a bank of ideas through short bursts of thinking and writing

Keep Thinking…

Are your children ‘Thinking Children?

How will you know?

What will you do?

What are the consequences?

Over to you…