7 Classroom Activities to Boost Critical and Creative Thinking Skills for the IB PYP
7 Classroom Activities to Boost Critical Thinking in the IB PYP Classroom
Developing critical thinking skills is crucial in an IB PYP setting, as it helps students become thoughtful inquirers. Here are seven practical classroom activities that align with the Approaches to Learning skills and encourage critical and creative thinking.
1. Inquiry Jar Exploration - Thinking & Research Skills
Present students with an Inquiry Jar or bag filled with objects related to the concepts within your unit of inquiry. Working in pairs, students predict each item’s purpose and justify their thinking. This activity sparks curiosity, supports questioning techniques, and builds evidence-based reasoning. I have blogged about the inquiry jar previously. 
This inquiry jar strategy is a great way to tune into the additional concepts within your theme using tangible materials.
2. A Questionable Conversation - Communication & Thinking Skills
Invite students to participate in a dialogue where they can only answer with questions. Start with a simple query like, “How was your day?” and then encourage question responses to carry on the conversation. For example:
- How exciting would sliding head first down the slide be?
- What if it turned it turned into a new game?
- How about we made the frst grade the referees?
- How could the first grade count past 20 kids?
- What if we had the whole school line up for the slide?
- How long would a line of 500 kids be?
- Where would the line end?
You get the idea? πThis can be hilarious! This game builds quick thinking and creative questioning, perfect for honing those listening to respond communication skills together with critical and creative thinking skills.
Classroom tip: Use this as a fun warm-up or as a reflective exercise after a unit.
3. Mind Mapping for Concept Connections - Thinking & Self-Management Skills
Encourage students to create mind maps that link central ideas and concepts from your unit of inquiry. This activity helps students organize their thoughts visually, deepening their understanding of connections between ideas. It’s especially effective in the Sorting Out phase of the inquiry cycle.
Pro tip: Incorporate colours and illustrations to further develop critical thinking skills as students will then categorise and classify, compare and contrast.
You can read more about the power of concept maps in this blog.
4. Reverse Engineering - Thinking & Research Skills
Provide students with a common object like a toy or a gadget and ask them to take it apart to see how it works. This hands-on activity engages students in critical thinking about design, structure, and function, ideal for units on How the World Works
ATL focus: Strengthen Research Skills as students document their observations and hypotheses about each component.
5. Human Categories - Social & Thinking Skills
This dynamic activity challenges students to categorise themselves into the most specific groups they can come up with. It usually begins with the common categories like eye colour, favorite hobbies, or shoe type. Challenge them to avoid an “other” category and limit the number of groups, pushing them to think creatively about how to organise themselves.
This learning experience is a great activity for tuning into the concepts within How We Organise Ourselves focusing on structure, systems, leadership and community.
6.Creative Thinking Journal
Each of my students also have this creative and critical thinking documentation journal, which is perfect for those independent thinkers, early finishers and spare time. Within the IB PYP, we are always looking to provide implicit practice of the sub-skills within the Approaches to Learning Skills. These creative thinking skills task cards are highly engaging, with fun inquiry-based tasks that cover a multitude of creative thinking skills and are designed with concept-based themes for most of the task cards.
The children are asked to think, discuss and create through words, pictures, diagrams. They integrate their prior knowledge of number, language and research skills in order to complete the tasks. And it is FUN!
7. Role Play Scenarios -Social & Self-Management Skills
Immerse students in real-life scenarios where they must role-play to solve a problem, like planning an event or resolving a fictional dispute. This encourages critical thinking, empathy, and perspective-taking, promoting Social Skills and Self-Management Skills.
I use these Social Skills and Self Management Skills task cards which present real-world scenarios that prompt critical thinking and problem-solving for situations that illustrate those skills in particular: conflict resolution, confidence, perseverance, interpersonal relationships etc. My kids LOVE working on solving these problems collaboratively and presenting their solutions in creative ways like skits, cartoons and mimes.
These strategies not only align with the IB PYP inquiry model but also provide students with opportunities to strengthen critical thinking as well as many other interconnected ATL skills. Implementing these activities will cultivate confident, reflective, and independent learners.π
Finally - A Rigorous Challenge!
If you are looking for a real challenge for upper grades, I highly recommend these Critical Thinking Skills task cards I created for my grade 5s. These are not for the faint of heart!
I hope youre able to apply some of these ideas in your classroom and inspire your students to think critically.
Enjoy!
P.S. If you are looking for more guidance on developing thinkers and inquirers through concept-based inquiry, take a look at my comprehensive online course, Essentials for Inquiry. It is packed with over 12 hours of professional learning workshops supporting student led inquiry.
