We often start P4C with a game or warm-up activity. Whilst these are popular because they are fun, it’s important to remember that each game also helps to practise or develop certain skills. (It can actually be worth sometimes asking students, after they’ve played a game, which skills they were practising or developing.)
As with all good teaching and learning, in P4C it’s important to assess which skills pupils have got, and which they still need to develop. You can then plan appropriate activities or games.
For example, if a class are struggling with turn-taking, it might be good to play some turn-taking games (e.g. Pass the Tambourine) at the start of every session, and draw specific attention to this.
Games to develop reasoning
Games to develop creative thinking
Games to build community
Games to develop listening
Have fun!
A detailed description including building, helping, sharing and working together
How to start a question, and think about whether or not it’s philosophical
How do they want to behave to become great 4C thinkers?
Reminders from six-year-olds about some of the benefits of P4C
Show your pupils that you are trying to understand their thinking
Get your pupils thinking and talking about resilience, barriers, beauty and more
Pupils feel that P4C helps them with everything from relationships to confidence to staying calm
How one teacher helped her class go deeper in their P4C enquiry
A fun picture book which can provoke big thinking
What will your class make of these contrasting images of children’s lives around the world?
Could preventing some children from having best friends help others?
Get your pupils thinking about the rights and wrongs of activism