The children get to choose their own challenges: mild, medium, spicy and the ultimate chili bowl challenge! I started off by gently nudging them in the right direction, but to my surprise my class didn't really need the nudges. It always amazes me how, just by changing the name of a task or the way a task is presented, it can totally change how children take to it... I expected quite a few children to opt for the easier challenge, but they didn't! If anything more children took the trickier challenges. It was lovely to see so many children relishing a challenge! It has given the children a sense of ownership over their learning and they have more of an awareness of their own abilities.
I have now developed he idea further so that as part of the chili bowl challenge extension tasks, children can write their own problems or challenges linked with the learning intention of the lesson and put them into the trays for other children to have a go at!
How do you differentiate? What successes or challenges have you come across?
