Having fun with problems

Speech and language therapy

﻿Hello everybody, my name's Emma, and welcome to today's lesson. I'm looking forward to today's session, and I hope you are, too. I can't wait to get started. But before we do, just a quick reminder. We here at Oak are here to support any approaches you might already be using and any work you might have already been set. We know this lesson is going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure or have any questions, please do contact your child's school or usual speech and language therapy team. In today's session, we're going to be using more language to solve problems. We're going to continue to be working on our ability to explain our decisions, and I am going to set you up with some activities to continue to work on explaining at home. For today's session, you're going to need some writing equipment. You're also going to need some dried spaghetti if you have some, as well as some marshmallows, the bigger the better. It would also be great if you have some sticky tape available, because this will help in one of our tasks. So before we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for the lesson. Turn off any distractions or notifications that you might have on your device, and them make sure that you and your adult are seated comfortably. When you're ready, let's begin. Okay, let's start by doing some talking and thinking about how we can have fun with solving problems. As we know, the Blanks Language Scheme was developed by Blank, Rose, and Berlin in 1978. Over the last few lessons, I have introduced you to the types of language in questions at Level 1, 2, 3, and 4. In the last lesson and in today's session, we've been thinking about using language to explain. Being able to talk about language and give explanations of why you've made a decision or how you're going to solve a problem is a really important life skill. So we're going to continue to use what we thought about yesterday to solve a few fun problems today. Pause the video here to get your pasta and marshmallows and sticky tape ready. When you're ready to begin, press Play. We're going to have a go building some towers. You and your adult need equal amounts of pasta and marshmallows, so share these between you. The goal is to see who can build the highest tower out of their pasta and their marshmallows. But you'll need to agree a set amount of time to make this fair. So pause the video here to think about how long you're going to give yourselves to build your tower. When you're ready, set the clock, and then let the fun commence. Once you've built your towers, come back to the video and press Play to continue. I hope you had fun building your towers. Now it's the time to talk it through. First of all, I want you to have a think about whose the tallest tower is. Then think about whether the tallest tower is actually the strongest. What made the tower really strong? Lastly, I'd like you to use your language to explain to one another why you decided to build your towers the way you did. So pause the video here to talk these questions through. When you finish, come back and press Play to continue with the rest of the lesson. Now is the opportunity to talk about what you might do differently if you were to build your tower again. Pause the video to talk about this, and then when you finish, come back and press Play to finish off the lesson. One of my favourite activities is called the Egg Drop Challenge. This is where you make a parachute and a protective box to protect your egg, and then you drop it from a height. The idea is that you work together to talk about how you're going to protect your egg. When you're explaining how you want to protect your egg, you might notice that you have different ideas. This will give us a great opportunity to predict what might happen next. You can also think about what might be the best form of protection, and also what would happen if you dropped your egg from a larger height or a smaller height. In Lesson 14, we're going to have a go doing this egg drop challenge. But for now, I'd like you to pause the video here and start planning how you would protect your egg. As ever, we want to make sure that we're creating a language-rich environment for our children, where they're accessing words, problem-solving, with all different types of questions in fun-filled, natural ways. By creating as many opportunities for explaining predictions and solutions to problems, we're helping our children to develop their narrative and verbal reasoning skills. Well, that brings us to the end of today's lesson, but a really big well done on all the fantastic problem solving that you did today. I'd love to see some pictures of your spaghetti and marshmallow towers. So if you'd like, you could ask your parent or carer to share these pictures on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter by tagging @OakNational so I can have a look. Don't forget to also share your progress with school. Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you. But take care, and enjoy the rest of your learning. Bye bye.

Having fun with problems

Having fun with problems

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

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