Crossing a river with role play (George Heriot's Junior School, P7)
Acting out a situation: lesson
Kirsten O’Hagan has been teaching for eight years, having first studied at Jordanhill College. At George Heriot's Junior School she is an enrichment teacher, working on thinking skills with P1 and P7 classes and problem solving with P7 classes. Kirsten works closely with the P7 teachers, planning problem solving to meet the needs of specific groups of pupils.
P7a lesson
During this half term, a group of P7 girls has been identified as needing extra help with more physical problem solving strategies, such as 'Acting out a situation' and 'Making a model'. Kirsten takes the girls into the playground, where they act out a problem based on transporting different people across a river in the least number of crossings.
One girl is the organiser and the others play the characters jumping across the blue paper river. The girls discuss how to go about it and make several attempts before getting everyone across, in the correct combination of seven crossings.
The girls say that they used 'Logic' and, at the beginning, 'Trial and error' to help them to solve the problem. They say that acting it out made the problem much easier to work out.
| P7 girls at George Heriot's Junior School 'Act out a situation' | |
|---|---|
| Description | A group of P7 girls using the 'Act out a situation' in the school playground |
| Duration | 2 minutes 19 seconds |
| Windows version |  Windows Media video: P7 girls at George Heriot's Junior School 'Act out a situation' |
| Mac version |  QuickTime movie: P7 girls at George Heriot's Junior School 'Act out a situation' |
| Transcript | P7 girls at George Heriot's Junior School 'Act out a situation' |
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