What does Delphi Philosophy look like?
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Delphi’s story can be used as a class novel
or as a full scheme of work of lessons
– or anywhere in between.
At their simplest, Delphi Philosophy stories can be taught by reading the story aloud to a class, and then leading class discussions when the story asks you a question.
The stories have been written to help develop children’s thinking skills, and all the questions, progression and tasks are built into the story.
The lesson plans and schemes of work are available for those who want to delve deeper and have more time to develop the children’s thinking skills more substantially. These sessions use a mix of listening to the story, responding to the questions through class enquiry, interactive storytelling techniques such as drama and roleplay, activities, games and drawing and writing responses. Like all good teaching and learning, no two lessons are quite the same, and there are plenty of surprises for the children!
Using the Story
Using Delphi's story is simple - follow these steps and you'll be philosophising in no time!
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As well as the story book, such as Delphi the Philosopher or Delphi the Dreamer, you will also have a picture slideshow for the chapter which you can display to the children. The best set up is for you to sit next to the screen, which will show the pictures and questions, and have your class in front of you either on the carpet or on chairs.
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Once you’ve settled the children down to listen, then you can start reading!
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When you get to a picture – click to the next slide. The slides follow what is in the book, so you simply need to make sure the children can see what you can see.
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As you read, you will regularly come across ‘Big Questions’ that are shown in a thought bubble next to the text. When you get to a question – stop reading and click to the next slide to display it to the children. This is your cue to lead a class discussion!
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The Delphi Philosophy Teacher's Guide contains extensive guidance on how to make the most of your class discussions.
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As you go along, the scheme will introduce sentence stems - these are simple sentence starters that help the children structure what they are thinking. These should be displayed at the front of your room - and they can make a big difference to your discussions! These are included in the Resource Packs.
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Everything else you need to know is included in guidance notes alongside the text. Take a look at a couple of pages below!
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You can see some examples of Delphi lessons in action by reading our Lesson Blogs here.
