What's included in the African Safari I Wonder Discussion Prompts resource and why is it useful?

EYFS African Safari I Wonder Discussion Prompts get children thinking and wondering out loud. Each slide shows one full-screen photograph with a single big question, so any adult can lead a rich discussion with no preparation. The content includes a PDF with 8 discussion prompts and an adult guidance page, covering sharp teeth, living in groups, animals helping each other, life in a Masai tribe, running across the grassland, trunks, hippos and crocodiles, and horns. They make ideal safari talk prompts and a carpet-time hook for your safari topic, developing children's communication and language skills and oracy.

Every slide supports the Early Learning Goals for Listening, Attention and Understanding and Speaking, and the questions also link to Understanding the World: The Natural World. Children's answers make useful observations to inform your ELG judgements.

The EEF Early Years Toolkit rates communication and language approaches at about +7 months' additional progress, at very low cost.

Amazing Animal Bodies

Questions about how animals' bodies help them, such as "What would be the best thing about having a trunk?"

Living Together

Questions about how animals live alongside each other, such as "How can animals help each other?"

Life on the Grassland

Imaginative questions about the African grassland, such as "What would it feel like to run across an African grassland?"

How do our EYFS I Wonder discussion prompts work?

Our I Wonder discussion prompts are designed for whole-class talk. Show a prompt on the interactive whiteboard and read the question aloud, then give children thinking time before they share. The questions are open by design, so there's no right answer to find: the aim is talk, reasoning and vocabulary. You can also use them:

• as a carpet-time hook to open a topic, or as a daily "wonder" routine
• with talk partners, who turn and talk about the question before sharing with the class
• for small-group talk with a practitioner or TA, exploring one or two slides in depth
• in continuous provision, with a slide left on screen or printed and placed in a themed area such as a safari tuff tray
• as a writing and mark-making hook, with children drawing or emergent-writing their own "I wonder..." ideas
• at home, shared on your class app or newsletter as a family conversation starter

Try showing the photograph first and asking "What can you see? What do you wonder?" Stretch confident talkers with follow-up prompts such as "What makes you think that?", or simplify by narrowing an open question to a choice (e.g. "Alone or in a group?"). Record children's own "I wonder" questions on a Wonder Wall and return to them through books, play and research.

Supporting Children with EAL and SEND

The full-screen photographs give every child something to talk about, so children can point, gesture or use single words before building to sentences. Pair the slides with Makaton or visuals your setting already uses. These simple approaches can also help:

• Simplified question stems: break questions into smaller steps and use yes/no questions (e.g. "Can you see the elephant?", "Is the ostrich running?").
• Reduce cognitive load: focus children's attention on the photo by pointing to key parts.
• Response scaffolds: provide sentence starters (e.g. "I wonder...", "I think...") to support expressive language.

You can explore more of our I Wonder discussion prompts here.