You may have come across this game before - children pass a simple-shaped object around the circle and say, for example:
Teacher: This is a pizza disc and it is also a giant full stop (holding up disc in front).
Child 1: This is a giant full stop and it is also my special hat (placing disc on head).
Child 2: This is my special hat and it is also the moon in the sky (holding disc up high).
…and so on.
Other objects I’ve seen successfully used include toilet roll tube, milk bottle lid, cube, piece of string, stick.
The key phrase and it is also enables children to practice building on someone else’s idea (it works well to model the phrase and get them to repeat it before starting to play).
The game develops the skills of turn-taking, listening, responding, talking in front of a group, and recognising simple shapes. Also, it of course develops creative thinking. It can be played with a whole class, or in smaller groups once the children are used to it. It’s a popular warm-up game for P4C, and can be an effective way to focus children on the idea that today in P4C we are going to try to be really good creative thinkers.
Here are my responses to some common questions raised by teachers:
What if a child just repeats other children’s ideas? This depends on the child; sometimes repeating an idea is a success, for example if the child is new to English or if this is the first time the child has spoken clearly in front of the group. For others, it may be appropriate to thank them for the idea, but point out whose idea they repeated and then challenge them to think of a new one.
What if some children don’t have any ideas? One option is to allow children to signal when they have thought of an idea (e.g. by folding arms) and having the turns pass to the next person who is showing the signal. If you continue going round in this manner, usually all children will eventually come up with something.
What if the child’s idea isn’t relevant to the object? Be careful here, as children’s creative ideas can be ‘correct’ in ways you don’t immediately recognise. If you can’t see any connection you could ask them to explain or justify the relevance, but remember this is a creative thinking game, so in some ways the more out of the box they go the better!