1st Edition

Talking Points: Discussion Activities in the Primary Classroom

By Lyn Dawes Copyright 2012
    144 Pages
    by Routledge

    144 Pages
    by Routledge

    Talking Points: Discussion Activities in the Primary Classroom encourages and supports classroom discussion on a range of topics, enabling children to develop the important life-skill of effective group communication. Children who can explain their own ideas and take account of the points of view and reasons of others are in the process of becoming truly educated. This book offers a straightforward way of teaching children discussion skills within the framework of a creative curriculum.

    The book provides an introduction on how to help children learn the skills of group discussion, offering six essential Talk Lessons to use in the classroom, alongside suggestions on how teachers can plan their lessons with a talk focus, set learning outcomes and create their own Talking Points to suit topics they are teaching. The main body of the book contains the Talking Points resources which are an excellent, tried and tested way of stimulating and supporting extended talk about a topic. The Talking Points in this book offer model for teachers to create further Talking Points for their own classes. The Talking Points included here offer discussion in several curriculum areas including:-

    • Science
    • Literacy
    • Philosophy and creativity for children
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Art and Music

    This invaluable book offers engaging, stimulating and thought provoking ideas for children to pit their wits against, promoting skills in discussion, analysis, reasoning and interaction. It is highly beneficial reading for teachers working in Key Stage 2, head teachers and those responsible for staff development, as well as students on teacher training courses and graduate training programmes.

    Talking Points Introduction Page 3

     

    Talking Points for Science Page 16

    Small creatures

    Micro-organisms

    The air and breathing

    In the garden

    Problems for the Earth

    Seeds

    Force

    Magnetism

    Light and Shadow

    Sound

    Our Place in Space

    Solids, Liquids and Gases

    Finding out about a range of materials

    Materials and the senses

    Water

     

    Talking Points for History Page 53

    The Georgians

    The Vikings

    The Incas

    Lots to Talk About Page 60

    Ways of learning

    Listening

    Friends

    Hands

    Places we like

    Money

    Time

    Play

    Pets

    Hedgehogs

    Recycling

    Music

    Works of Art Talking Points: Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso

    Works of Art Talking Points: The Bedroom at Arles by Vincent Van Gogh

    Works of Art Talking Points: The Singing Butler by Jack Vettriano

    Works of Art Talking Points: Farbstudie Quadrate by Wassily Kandinski

    Talking Points: All the Children of the World

     

    5. Talking Points for Poems and Stories Page 80

    In the Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

    Flanking Sheep in Mosedale by David Scott

    High Flight (An airman’s ecstasy) by John Gillespie Magee

    Bruce Ismay’s Soliloquy by Derek Mahon

    The Door by Richard Edwards

    The Invisible Beast by Jack Prelutsky

    The quarrel by Eleanor Farjeon

    Helping’s Easy by I. Yates

    Waking at Night by J. Kenward

    Spring Pools by Robert Frost

    Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now by A. E. Housman

    Trout Leaping in the River Arun

    Where a Juggler was Drowned by Charles Dalman

    Tall nettles by Edward Thomas

    The Vixen by John Clare

    Open all the cages by Richard Edwards

    Snow by Louis McNeice

    Why Brownlee Left

    by Paul Muldoon

    Gorilla by Martin Honeysett

    The Pied Piper by Robert Browning

    The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

    Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie

    The Once and Future King by T. H. White

     

    6. Talking Points: Lists Page 105

    List 1. Things that are a waste of time

    List 2. Things that are always enjoyable

    List 3. Things that we would like to change

    List 4. Things that we would like to keep the same

    List 5. Things that should be round

    List 6. Things to think of when lying awake in the middle of the night

    List 7. Things that are going to go wrong in the future

    List 8. Things about being an adult that are better than being a child

    List 10. Things that we aim to do

     

    7. Talking Points for Mathematics Page 115

    2D & 3D shapes

    About the number 3

    About the number 5

    Prime Numbers

    Circles

    Probability

     

    Further Reading Page 123

    Biography

    Lyn Dawes has extensive teaching experience and is currently Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Northampton, UK, and visiting lecturer at Cambridge University, UK. Her previous publications include Creating a Speaking and Listening Classroom: Integrating Talk for Learning at Key Stage 2 and The Essential Speaking and Listening: Talk for Learning at Key Stage 2, both published by David Fulton.

    Paul Warwick, author of the science information notes which accompany the Talking Points, is Senior Lecturer in Education at Cambridge University, UK, specialising in science education.