Download Contents of The Happiness Box Teachers` Notes

Contents of The Happiness Box
• Set of nine A4 Posters: Quotes by famous people on the theme of happiness.
• 10 laminated photographs.
• Short Story ‘Thief in the Night’ by Steve Bowkett – a set of 6 children’s books for use in
a guided session plus a Big Book version.
• A million pound note.
• Engraved ‘Happiness Pebble’.
• Sample Thinking Journal (optional additional purchase)
• Teacher Notes:
Teachers’ Notes
The Thinking Box: What Do We THINK About... HAPPINESS?
These notes provide over 100 starter questions and practical ideas for using the contents of
The Thinking Box, including suggestions for follow up work. Each starter idea or question
has the capacity for extended thinking, discussion and literacy work. The potential of this box
is therefore enormous.
Everything has been used and developed directly with children, mostly with Key Stage 2, in
different schools across the UK.
Index
• Introduction
• Quotes about Happiness
• Happiness questions
• A million pounds
• Using objects to explore the theme of happiness and links with literacy.
• A short story: Thief by Night.
• Using photographs: promoting visual literacy as a way to think more deeply about
happiness.
• Happiness Pebbles: using artefacts and a sense of touch to stimulate thinking about
happiness
• Possible writing outcomes: suggestions for writing tasks in a range of different text
types.
Introduction
This is the first Thinking Box by Thinking Child, intended to develop a range of literacy,
thinking & learning skills; giving teachers a toolkit of ideas to support children on their
journey to becoming confident thinkers, readers and writers.
It also has the aim of helping schools to promote key values, encouraging children to explore
deeper philosophical themes.
The materials and activities in this box are meant to be flexible, to be used in a variety of
ways. For example, to stimulate discussion in a whole class P4C session, to form part of a
group reading session, sometimes leading to a longer piece of writing.
Speaking and listening are integral to the design of the box, providing ongoing opportunities
for meaningful, structured talk.
Up and down the country reading sessions in schools frequently focus on helping children
to improve their deeper comprehension skills; to ‘think and look beyond the page’, usually
referred to as the skills of inference and deduction.
However, the ability to infer and engage with a text or other piece of work needs a wide range
of skills and dispositions, including:
• Prediction and hypothesis.
• Being able to activate and draw upon prior knowledge.
• The ability to ask ‘good questions’ and recognise when you are being asked one.
• To compare and contrast.
• Being able to notice, and explain, cause and effect.
• The ability to ‘fill gaps’ – look for clues, being able to elaborate and interpret logically.
• To cite evidence from the text and give other examples.
• Monitor your own misunderstandings and develop consistent self-correction skills.
• Being able to use a rich vocabulary.
• Being able to engage with any emotional content and respond appropriately.
• To listen and form opinions – able to accept/reject and change your mind in light of new
opinions.
This Thinking Box is designed to support all of these, and more – using a range of stimulating
material, including a specially commissioned short story on the theme of Happiness. They
will engage children’s attention and help them to think, read, discuss, and record/write their
thoughts in interesting and creative ways.
Many of the questions and ideas draw upon the practice of Philosophy for Children and the
various pedagogies used in the teaching of reading and writing. The ideas here will support
teachers as they:
• model and demonstrate thinking aloud.
• talk about how to problem solve.
• encourage creative thinking and expect children to make mistakes.
• articulate thoughts and opinions.
• show how, and expect everyone, to disagree reasonably and politely.
• promote listening skills, work with a range of other people and develop a range of social
skills.
It is expected that you will add and amend to the ideas here, share with colleagues and build
an even bigger bank of creative resources for your school, as you support children’s thinking
and literacy on a regular basis.
Using objects and pictures
The million pound note
Start by asking children lots of questions - to make them think and understand more clearly
what a million pounds could buy and help them to form a concept of how much a million
pounds actually is. They could make lists or draw pictures /cut out from magazines to make a
collage.
Possible questions and activities
Imagine you found a million pound note in the street – what would you do?
Imagine you won it – who would you tell?
Would you keep it all for yourself? If not – who would you share it with?
Who wouldn’t you give any of your million pounds to? Why?
Make a list of the top 5 things you would want to buy.
If you had to choose just one thing on your list, which would it be and why?
Is there anything that you couldn’t buy with a million pounds?
Are there some things that you cannot put a price on at all?
What does the word ‘priceless’ mean?
What does ‘one in a million’ mean? Do you know someone who is ‘one in a million’?
Explain your reasons.
If you were told you had to give your million pound note away, who or what would you give
it to? Explain your decisions.
Give children sticky post it notes and place two hoops at either end of the room. One is
labelled ‘WANTS’ the other is labelled ‘NEEDS’. Ask children to write things on their
sticky notes and place them in the appropriate hoop. Use the results for a longer discussion to
explore in more depth the choices children make.
How many ways is it possible to be generous? What ideas could we do as a class straight
away?
Does being generous always mean money?
How do we know when we are poor?
How do we decide when we or other people are rich? Can we all agree on one definition?