I’ve noticed that there are a lot of posts relating to critical skills. Personally I love it; and I was lucky to be given training in the UK. I developed this further through my teaching and managed to practice many fun critical thinking tasks. I am now living and working in Sharjah, near Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Critical skills is not used so widely here. However, that is all about to change, as there is a call for a more enriching curriculum in this forward thinking and competitive Arab country.

Therefore, I will have to remember some of the techniques that I used in the UK. When my memory has been jogged, I will be sharing them with you.

One of my favourite tasks, is a starter called, “Name something you wouldn’t do…….” 

![IMG_20171222_174935.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXFxUL4KZuDJwdioPth62eBFyKDET6SSBfCeArkJKpYUx/IMG_20171222_174935.jpg)


You can adapt this task to reflect a current event. I will share a list of those ideas later in the blog. For now, I would like to share my ideas for the title question, “Things I Wouldn’t Do On Christmas Day.”

- Wear a Manchester United shirt
- Ride a Unicorn
- Throw away my presents
- Eat 10 bananas
- Go to the cinema
- Watch the Queen’s speech
- Be naughty all day long
- Shout out very loud
- Do a skydive
- Play cricket

These are the types of responses you are likely to receive from students. The more you repeat this task, the better the imagination comes. You will find students come to your lesson early and take an active part in this task. I am an ICT teacher, so I would get to students to log in as soon as they enter the room. They would read the question from the board and make a list. They could use a word processor. After around 10 minutes, I would do a sweep, i.e. I will ask every student to share one answer.

How you administer this task in a classroom is up to you. Whatever way you do it, this task is far more interesting than asking students what they did do over the holiday. You can change the question each week. Here are some ideas.

Name something you wouldn’t do;

- On a Sunday
- With a hat
- On a boat
- At a Football Match
- With an apple
- With your trousers
- At a firework display
- With a rugby ball
- At a production performance
- With a clock

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. You can adapt this task in so many ways. If you are the lazy teacher that has forgotten to do their planning, perhaps you can think of a quick idea as the students enter the room.

I do hope you manage to try this one out. Let me know how it goes.

Have a very happy holiday. Thank you for reading.

All pictures are mine. They were taken in Ajman, United Arab Emirates on 22nd December 2017 on my smartphone
(Lenovo K5 Plus)

![IMG_20171222_172557.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmapfshFF8DDfbocSKiQDLrpeBxCmn5dww4Qb7wBXunCVj/IMG_20171222_172557.jpg)