Thunks

Odd Questions to Make the Kids Think

Developing speech and language skills are an essential part of the Early Years. Language development leads to developing story ideas, critical thinking, social skills and many more!

Thunk work towards raising children’s confidence to speak in front of groups, in full sentences and to think about topics they haven’t previously considered.

I’ve often asked the kids what colour is Tuesday, which they sometimes take literally and say the colour of the word on the board.. Other Thunks could be:

• Can you touch the wind?
• If you took the stripes off a zebra, what colour would it be? (Also tiger and spots from a leopard)
• Where do words go after you’ve heard them?

• Would you rather have wings or four legs? (and other ‘would you rather’ questions)
• Is there more future or more past?
• Is black a colour?
• If I switch the lights off, do the walls change colour?
• If I turn the lights off, do I still have a shadow?

I have many more, please see the power point attached to this blog post.

I am a huge fan of Thunks. You may find that when you start to do Thunks, it’s rather difficult to get answers out of the children, but I can guarantee that after a month or so of speaking to the children about Thunks, especially in the Summer term, they will have some very thoughtful and interesting answers for you.

Thunks can even be done with nursery children. Developing language skills are essential for the littlies, they can be used even with 3 year olds because the younger they are, the more interesting their answers are!

You Know Your Cohort

Some of the questions may seem quite difficult for the little ones to answer.

	Thunks Lesson Plan Hopefully this lesson plan will give you some idea of how I would do Thunks with the little ones. Download the Thunks Lesson Plan here.
	Thunks PowerPoint This PowerPoint has 48 separate Thunks. They are an example of innovative questions you could ask the children, but remember you can change or adjust the questions for the level of your cohort. Download the PowerPoint here.
	Thunks Pictographs Whenever I’ve done pictographs as a data collection, counting and speaking and listening activity, the children have enjoyed it! I try to use pictographs where ever I can. Collecting information on Thunks is a good a chance as any! Download the Pictograph sheets here.

It’s important that you adjust the questions for the children in your cohort. By the end of the year, children should be used to answering questions like these and you should get some very interesting answers.

As you can see from the lesson plan, these Thunks are designed to develop language and thinking skills.

Please leave feedback to let me know how your children did completing these activities.