The children in Year 2 have been learning about winding mechanisms in their STEM sessions this week. First they had a Halloween problem to solve – Zog the monster needed to get all of his pumpkins to the top of the hill. Once the children discussed this problem they had to design something to solve it. They did really well to make varying designs of winding mechanisms. There was a lot of trial and error, teamwork, mistakes and successes in this task. Once finished, the children evaluated their designs using the black and yellow thinking hats.
Green Hat Delivery
Today the children in Year One have been wearing their green hats all morning. The children know that when they wear their green hat they have to think creatively in terms of alternative ideas. They certainly managed to do this today when thinking of different ways that their Santa letters could be delivered to the North Pole. Some of the most creative ideas to achieve this task were a giant catapult, a giant tennis racket and a magic postbox!
School Council
07/02/18
Our school council have now adopted the thinking hats approach in meetings to lead discussion, inform decisions and to structure thinking. In the latest school council meeting the topic of discussion was “keeping safe”. The children gave gut reactions about how safe they feel in school. They then used the yellow hat and thought of places that they feel safe along with reasons why they feel safe in these places. Following this, they used to black hat to think of places where they do not feel safe in school (along with reasons why). The members of the school council enjoyed this approach and they have said that they would like to use it in future meetings.
Thinking Skills with Year 2
The children in Year 2 have been talking about space exploration as part of our work in History. After making our timeline in previous sessions and discussing the key events in space travel history we then decided to get our thinking hats out. We explored the statement, “it is a good idea to explore space.” As you can see the children had some differing opinions on this and some had changed their mind by the end of the session.
Teamwork within STEM Curriculum
29/01/18
Teamwork was the order of the day during some Year 2 STEM work. The children were put into teams and given as many balloons and as much masking tape as they desired. Their challenge was to build a tower as tall as possible using these materials. Before beginning their task they were given some time to design their tower and were also reminded about our previous work regarding emotional intelligence. We discussed how to recognise emotions in others, how to show empathy and how to compromise.
At the end of the activity we utilised thinking hats to assess how well the activity went for their team, judging not just the final product but their work together.
Space Exploration
16/01/18
Today we have been talking about space exploration as part of our work in history. After making our timeline in previous sessions and discussing the key events in space travel history we decided to get our thinking hats out today. We explored the statement “It is a good idea to explore space.” As you can see the children had some differing opinions on this and some had changed their mind by the end of the session.
Thinking about Fireworks
2/11/17
The children used De Bono’s thinking hats this morning to explore an interesting statement. They are learning how thinking hats can help them to organise their thinking and influence decision making. These are valuable skills for the future.
We started with the statement “All fireworks should be banned” and then utilised each hat to explore our thinking on this. The children gave their gut reaction to this statement using the red hat. Next they looked at facts about firework safety wearing their white hat. They then explored the positives and negatives of banning fireworks until finally thinking of alternative ideas for this. Some children decided that they should be banned and that we should watch them at the cinema as an alternative. Others disagreed with this and decided that we shouldn’t ban them. Instead they designed safety devices to keep people from getting hurt.
Green Hat Thinking
24/11/17
Some of our children practised their green hat thinking as part of their homework last week. The green hat is concerned with creative thinking and alternative ideas. It can help us to consider all possibilities and can be utilised as an important tool for decision making. As you can see below, our children can be very creative.
Thinking Hats Display
29th September 2017
Our thinking hats display is well on the way to being finished. It is based on the use of thinking hats in class to explore a topic. The children used the hats to learn all about Ancient Egypt. More details to follow as we finish the display.
