To make the most of a live ‘check in’/register time during remote learning due to Covid-19 partial school closures, Gemma Hunt has been using odd-one-out activities with her Year 1 (age 5-6 pupils).  Sometimes this has focused on applying knowledge from a previous topic like materials, other times the stimulus is designed to elicit ideas about a new topic, like senses. The odd-one-out pictures are displayed and children called upon to unmute and explain their ideas. Gemma has found that this takes time, but the children listen to each other and build on each other’s ideas.

Here are some responses when asked to select an odd-one-out from a human hand, a dog’s paw and a bird’s foot:

• Child A: The hand is the odd one out because it is on a human arm and the others are from legs of animals.
• Child B: The hand is the odd one out because it has nails and dogs and birds have claws.
• Child C: The hand is the odd one out because you can measure with it but you can’t use animals to measure! (The children had been using hands as a non-standard measuring unit in maths and Science)
• Child D: The bird is the odd one out because the claws are very sharp but our nails and dogs claws are not very sharp.
• Child E: The hand because we can grab with them.

Older children could be asked to write their answers in the chat or on a shared platform like a Jamboard or padlet.

West Twyford Primary School, London