What you need
- a toy, puppet or small-world crocodile
- blue fabric to represent the river
Ideas for presentation
- a card from the Problem Solving bank
- a message left on the fabric river
- a recorded message
What to do
- Talk about the problem with the children and discuss different ways of solving it.
- Talk about different ways of crossing the river.
- Let the children decide whether to work alone, in pairs or in groups.
- If it isn't already in place, help the children to set up the fabric 'river', then select their resources.
- Use open-ended questions to encourage thinking and talking skills. Ensure that you do not solve the problem for them.
- Try each of the other ideas and talk about how each one worked, and how they solved the problem.
Useful vocabulary
river, crocodile, hungry, eat, safe, cross, step, run, jump, leap, bridge, over, span, dam, under, hold
Taking it further
- Design or draw the ideas first.
- Photograph the process and the solutions.
Then you could:
- Make the river wider
- Try other ways to cross
- Turn the work into a story and act it out.
And another thing
Help children to use problem solving techniques to address things that scare or worry them.
From Problem Solving - Ideas and activities to unlock current topics by Margaret Martin (Featherstone Education). To order at the special price of £9.99, tel: 0185 888 1212; fax: 0185 888 1360 or visit www.featherstone.uk.com, quoting NWPROB. Offer ends 29 February.