A very merry Metacognitive Christmas

Thinking Frames and Thinking Moves are designed to support students in becoming more effective meta-learners as they seek to improve their metacognitive and self-regulatory capacities. As we begin to wind down for Christmas, it was great fun to meet with our TM consultants and consider how many ways they could use the Thinking Frames and Thinking Moves to help display their thinking, organise their ideas and get themselves to dive more deeply into the subject material... Enjoy their Christmas suggestions below and do share examples from your students to add to our classroom resources.

RE / PSHE

Defining what we know about Christmas. RL: What made you think of these events? Why is this important?
Sequencing the Nativity story. RL: Why are we studying this story? What does this teach us?
Categorise the events and actions of religious believers during Hanukkah, Diwali and Christmas.
Compare and contrast two different religious festivals: e.g. Hanukkah & Christmas.
Sequencing the different events and rituals that now form many of our Christmas traditions e.g. yule log. RL: Do these rituals lose meaning over time?
What Habits of Mind were demonstrated by the characters in the nativity story. RL: What does this teach us?
Compare and contrast Christmas in different parts of the world: e.g. UK & Ukraine.
Cause and effect of giving to charitable organisations at Christmas: e.g. The Samaritan’s Purse.
Think Ahead to Christmas this year. Sequence your build-up to Christmas.
Describe how this makes you feel.
Zoom-out and consider why this event is important for some people and hard for others.
Compare and contrast two points of view.

ENGLISH

Think Back to Christmas in the past few years. Describing your feelings at Christmas. RL: Does everyone have a similar feeling?
What are the changes in Scrooge’s character in the Christmas Carol? RL: Where else do we see a similar pattern?
Zoom-In on Scrooge’s feelings during the story. What are the key characteristics traits of Scrooge identified by the three ghosts?
Use a collection of old Christmas cards, lay them out and ask students to pick a selection, to sequence them and then use that as a framework to tell a story.

MATHS