Activity 3: Thinking and Odd-one-out

This is one part of the reflection on the lesson “Introducing Challenge to Pre-School Children”

Procedures

1. Children are sitting in a circle, around the imaginary Volcano. Four cards with the drawing and the letters are placed in the Volcano; these are V-Volcano, B-Bus, F-Fox, L-Lion. Children are asked to say what unites the 4 cards. One child says that there are letter on every card. The reply is accepted. 
2. Then, the teacher takes each card in turn and asks to give the reason why the card is ‘odd’. Why ‘volcano’ is different. Children provide several versions; one of them ‘it has steam going out of it’ is accepted. The ‘Lion’ is identified as odd because he is roaring. The teacher specifies that he does not only produce a sound (as a fox or a bus) but is roaring. The ‘Fox’ is said to be cunning. The ‘Bus’ has several versions to be odd – being a means of transport and having wheels. The answers are accepted.

Students’ response and Teacher’s role

1. Students were very active when doing this task. They were all involved and were providing their versions, especially with ‘odd-one-out’. The items were so different that it was easy to see the differences. The teacher was trying to specify the features provided by the students (e.g. all the things produce sounds, but the sound produced by the lion is a roar, not a simple noise). 

Overall reflection on the Activity 3

• All children were participating so students were motivated and the teacher had the chance to offer more challenge, showing that their answers do not solve the problem. Accepting the first solutions decreased this potential.
• Another important potential available in this task with the motivated students is to focus on clarification of the parameter of sorting. Saying that a ‘Fox’ is cunning means that a ‘Volcano’ and a ‘Bus’ can also be characterised through such a parameter as ‘trait of character’ (with the value ‘not cunning/naïve/or the like’), which is not the case.