PYP Provocation Ideas

Student participation is easy to notice. Student thinking is harder to see.

A lively discussion may show that learners are engaged, but it does not always reveal how they are interpreting an idea, what evidence they are using, where their misconceptions sit or how their understanding is changing. Thinking routines give PYP teachers a practical way to make those processes visible.

Harvard’s Project Zero defines a thinking routine as “a set of questions or a brief sequence of steps used to scaffold and support student thinking.” When the same structures are used regularly, learners begin to recognise and apply the thinking moves independently. Explore Project Zero’s official Thinking Routines Toolbox.

The 15 thinking routines below can support inquiry across the PYP, from launching a new unit to reasoning with evidence, considering perspectives and reflecting on conceptual change.

Adaptation note: The prompt sequences follow Project Zero’s published routines. The suggested PYP age ranges and evidence-capture ideas are practical classroom adaptations. Younger learners can respond through talk, drawing, movement or teacher scribing rather than extended writing.

What Are Thinking Routines?

Thinking routines are short, repeatable structures that focus attention on a particular kind of thinking. One routine may help students separate observation from interpretation. Another may help them support a claim with evidence, explore a viewpoint or recognise how their thinking has changed.

They are not worksheets to complete once and file away. They become routines when students meet them often enough to use the structure with growing independence across different subjects and contexts.

A useful PYP thinking routine should:

1. Serve a clear thinking purpose
2. Use a small number of memorable prompts
3. Work with meaningful unit content
4. Make individual thinking visible before group consensus forms
5. Produce evidence that can influence the next stage of inquiry

Thinking routines are also different from provocations. A provocation is the stimulus or encounter that creates curiosity. A thinking routine helps students examine and express the thinking that stimulus generates.

Looking for lesson-opening stimuli rather than thinking routines? Explore these PYP provocation ideas for every transdisciplinary theme.

Thinking Routines for Starting an Inquiry

These routines surface prior knowledge, initial interpretations, misconceptions and genuine questions. They are especially useful before teachers decide what evidence, examples or investigations the class needs next.

1. See–Think–Wonder

Purpose: Develop careful observation, evidence-based interpretation and curiosity without rushing students towards a correct answer.

Prompt sequence: What do you see? What do you think is happening? What does it make you wonder?

Best inquiry stage: At the beginning of a unit or when introducing an image, object, graph, demonstration, artefact or short video.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 3–12. Use oral responses, gestures or drawing with early learners.

Evidence to capture: Record observations separately from interpretations. Notice which details students use as evidence, which assumptions appear repeatedly and which questions could open further inquiry.

2. Think–Puzzle–Explore

Purpose: Activate prior knowledge while treating uncertainty and misconceptions as useful starting points for inquiry.

Prompt sequence: What do you think you know? What puzzles or questions do you have? How might you explore those puzzles?

Best inquiry stage: Before planning investigations into a new topic, concept or transdisciplinary issue.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 5–12. Younger students can draw what they think and choose from possible ways to explore.

Evidence to capture: Preserve students’ initial ideas exactly, including misconceptions. Capture recurring puzzles and the investigation methods students propose, then revisit the record later.

3. Zoom In

Purpose: Slow observation, encourage flexible interpretation and show students that conclusions should change when new evidence appears.

Prompt sequence: Reveal only one part of an image, object or text. Ask: What do you notice? What might this be? What questions do you have? Reveal another part and ask: What new things do you see? How has your interpretation changed? Repeat before showing the whole.

Best inquiry stage: When launching an inquiry in which perspective, context, evidence or incomplete information matters.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 3–12.

Evidence to capture: Keep a sequence of students’ interpretations after every reveal. Look for revisions, resistance to changing an idea and the evidence that caused a shift.

4. Think–Pair–Share

Purpose: Give every learner time to form an idea, rehearse reasoning and encounter another perspective before whole-class discussion.

Prompt sequence: Think independently about the question. Pair with another learner and explain your thinking. Share your idea or your partner’s idea with the group.

Best inquiry stage: Before discussion, prediction, problem-solving, text interpretation or reflection at any point in a unit.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 3–12. Pair talk can include objects, drawings or physical demonstrations.

Evidence to capture: Ask students to record an initial idea and one addition or revision after the pair conversation. Note whether they can represent their partner’s thinking accurately.

Routines for Exploring New Ideas

Once an inquiry is underway, students need structures for connecting information, building explanations, examining systems and reasoning with evidence.

5. Connect–Extend–Challenge

Purpose: Help students connect new information with prior understanding, recognise how an idea extends their thinking and identify what remains difficult or unresolved.

Prompt sequence: How does this connect with what you already knew? What extended or broadened your thinking? What challenges or puzzles remain?

Best inquiry stage: After a text, video, experiment, expert interaction, fieldwork experience or substantial discussion.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 7–12. With younger learners, replace “extend” with “What new idea did this add?”

Evidence to capture: Record the concepts students connect, the genuinely new ideas they identify and the challenges that should shape differentiation or further inquiry.

6. Chalk Talk

Purpose: Create a silent, collaborative conversation in which students can build on ideas, question one another and participate without competing for speaking time.

Prompt sequence: Respond silently to a question on chart paper or a shared board. Read other responses. Add connections, extensions or questions. Step back and identify patterns in the collective thinking.

Best inquiry stage: When exploring an open question, sensitive issue, complex concept or multiple lines of inquiry.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 6–12. Emerging writers can use symbols, sketches or teacher-supported captions.

Evidence to capture: Photograph the completed conversation. Mark clusters, contradictions, unanswered questions and ideas that grew because one learner responded to another.

7. Claim–Support–Question

Purpose: Strengthen reasoning by requiring students to connect an interpretation or explanation with evidence and then recognise what remains uncertain.

Prompt sequence: Make a claim. Identify evidence or reasons that support it. Ask a question about the claim or its support. What is not yet explained?

Best inquiry stage: After students have gathered enough information to interpret a text, dataset, experiment, artwork, event or issue.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 8–12. Younger learners can use “I think… because… I still wonder…”

Evidence to capture: Keep claims, supporting evidence and questions visually separated. Notice unsupported claims, evidence used by several students and questions that could test or complicate the explanation.

8. What Makes You Say That?

Purpose: Move classroom talk from unsupported opinion towards interpretation grounded in observable evidence.

Prompt sequence: What is going on here? What do you see, know or notice that makes you say that?

Best inquiry stage: Whenever a student offers an interpretation, prediction, conclusion or judgement that needs reasoning.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 3–12.

Evidence to capture: Record the student’s idea beside the evidence offered. Listen for stronger evidence language over time, such as “I noticed,” “the data shows,” “the character said” or “when we tested it.”

9. Parts–Purposes–Complexities

Purpose: Help students examine how the components of an object or system relate to its functions and where complexity appears.

Prompt sequence: What are its parts? What is the purpose of each part? What is complex or puzzling about the relationships between the parts and purposes?

Best inquiry stage: During investigations of designed objects, natural systems, organisations, communities or processes.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 5–12. Replace “complexities” with “puzzles” for younger learners.

Evidence to capture: Use labelled drawings or system maps. Capture missing components, assumed purposes, interactions between parts and questions about what happens when one part changes.

Routines for Considering Different Perspectives

Perspective-taking requires more than asking students for another opinion. These routines help learners identify who or what holds a viewpoint, what shapes it and how it changes the interpretation of an issue.

10. Circle of Viewpoints

Purpose: Generate and explore multiple perspectives around an event, issue, object, system or decision.

Prompt sequence: Brainstorm possible viewpoints. Choose one. Complete: “I am thinking about this from the viewpoint of…” “From this viewpoint, I think…” “A question I have from this viewpoint is…”

Best inquiry stage: When an issue appears to have only two sides or when students need to recognise stakeholders beyond the most visible participants.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 8–12. Younger students can use familiar characters or clearly represented community roles.

Evidence to capture: Record the range of viewpoints selected, the evidence students use to construct each position and the questions that become visible only from a particular perspective.

11. Step Inside

Purpose: Explore a viewpoint by considering what a person, character, object or system participant may perceive, know, believe and care about.

Prompt sequence: What can this person or thing perceive? What might they know or believe? What might they care about?

Best inquiry stage: During literature, historical inquiry, social studies, design, art or investigations involving affected groups.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 6–12.

Evidence to capture: Separate evidence-based inference from invention. Note which details from the source support the response and where students may be relying on stereotypes or assumptions.

12. Compass Points

Purpose: Examine a proposal before taking a position by balancing interest, concern, information needs and possible next steps.

Prompt sequence: E: What is exciting about this idea? W: What is worrisome? N: What do we need to know? S: What is your current stance or suggestion for moving forward?

Best inquiry stage: Before a class decision, design choice, action plan, policy discussion or evaluation of a proposed solution.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 7–12. Use four visual compass areas and concrete examples for younger students.

Evidence to capture: Preserve the four categories. Compare initial and final positions, identify information students need before deciding and record whether concerns change the proposed action.

Routines for Reflection and Metacognition

Reflection becomes more useful when students identify not only what they learned, but how and why their thinking changed.

13. 3–2–1 Bridge

Purpose: Compare thinking before and after a learning experience and make the change itself visible.

Prompt sequence: Before learning, record three words or ideas, two questions and one metaphor or simile. Repeat the same 3–2–1 after learning. Build a “bridge” explaining how the two responses connect and why thinking changed.

Best inquiry stage: Use the first response near the start of an inquiry and the second after significant new evidence or at the end of the unit.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 7–12. Younger learners can use three drawings, two wonders and one comparison.

Evidence to capture: Keep both thinking snapshots together. The most valuable evidence is the student’s explanation of the bridge, not whether the second response sounds more sophisticated.

14. I Used to Think… Now I Think…

Purpose: Help students recognise a shift in belief, interpretation or understanding and explain what caused it.

Prompt sequence: “I used to think…” “Now I think…” Add: “My thinking changed because…”

Best inquiry stage: After a powerful learning experience, feedback cycle, discussion or at the end of an inquiry.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 5–12. Early learners can complete the stems orally while the teacher scribes.

Evidence to capture: Record the original and revised idea, the evidence or experience responsible for the change and cases where students refined rather than completely replaced their thinking.

15. Headlines

Purpose: Synthesise the central meaning of a learning experience in a concise, memorable statement.

Prompt sequence: If you had to write a headline that captured the most important idea, what would it be? After further learning, ask: How would you revise your headline now?

Best inquiry stage: At the end of a lesson, inquiry cycle, field visit, discussion or unit, and again after new evidence appears.

Suitable PYP ages: Ages 6–12. Younger learners can create a short title and accompanying picture.

Evidence to capture: Save individual headlines before choosing a class version. Compare revisions to see which concepts became more central and which details students stopped treating as the main idea.

How to Choose a Routine by Inquiry Phase

Do not select a routine simply because it is familiar. Start with the kind of thinking students need to do next.

Inquiry need	Recommended routines	What the teacher learns
Surface prior thinking	Think–Puzzle–Explore, 3–2–1 Bridge	Existing ideas, misconceptions and questions
Observe before interpreting	See–Think–Wonder, Zoom In	Attention to detail and willingness to revise
Encourage equitable participation	Think–Pair–Share, Chalk Talk	Individual ideas before dominant voices shape discussion
Connect new information	Connect–Extend–Challenge	What students integrated and what remains difficult
Reason with evidence	Claim–Support–Question, What Makes You Say That?	Strength of the claim-evidence relationship
Examine a system	Parts–Purposes–Complexities	Understanding of components, functions and interactions
Explore perspectives	Circle of Viewpoints, Step Inside	Range and quality of perspective-taking
Evaluate a proposal	Compass Points	Interest, risk, information gaps and readiness to act
Reflect on conceptual change	3–2–1 Bridge, I Used to Think… Now I Think…	How and why understanding changed
Synthesize meaning	Headlines	What students consider most significant

One routine may serve several phases. See–Think–Wonder, for example, can open a unit, deepen analysis midway through it or reveal more sophisticated observation at the end.

How Teachers Can Capture Visible Thinking

The routine is only half of the work. The other half is preserving enough evidence to notice patterns, plan responsively and help students revisit their own thinking.

Useful documentation methods include:

1. Dated photographs of charts, sticky notes and system maps
2. Student journals with initial and revised responses on the same page
3. Short audio recordings of partner explanations
4. Teacher notes that preserve a student’s exact words
5. Digital boards that show connections and revisions over time
6. Individual thinking completed before a class response is negotiated

Capture selectively. A teacher does not need to transcribe every sentence. Focus on evidence connected to the routine’s purpose: a misconception, a claim without support, a newly noticed perspective, a repeated question or a clear shift in conceptual understanding.

Most importantly, return to the documentation. Ask students what they would add, remove, connect or revise now. Visible thinking becomes valuable when it influences what happens next.

Common Implementation Mistakes

Using a routine once and calling it a routine

Students need repeated exposure before the prompts become part of their independent thinking. Introduce a small set well and reuse it across subjects.

Choosing the routine before identifying the thinking goal

See–Think–Wonder is excellent for observation, but it is not the best tool for evaluating a proposal. Match the routine to the thinking move the inquiry requires.

Skipping individual think time

Immediate whole-class discussion rewards the fastest and most confident speakers. Give every student time to think, draw or write before ideas are shared.

Correcting misconceptions too early

An initial misconception is evidence, not a failure. Record it, create opportunities to test it and revisit it after students encounter new information.

Collecting responses without changing the inquiry

If student questions and challenges never influence examples, texts, investigations or grouping, the routine becomes performative. Use what it reveals.

Assessing answers instead of examining thinking

Avoid grading early routine responses for correctness. Look for observation, reasoning, evidence, connection, perspective and revision.

Displaying only polished responses

Visible thinking should include uncertainty, disagreement and change. A wall of perfect final answers hides the learning process the routine was meant to reveal.

Confusing a provocation with a thinking routine

An intriguing photograph, object or event may begin the inquiry. The routine gives students a disciplined way to observe, interpret, question or reflect on it. Strong PYP planning often uses both.

Make Thinking Part of the Classroom Culture

The goal is not to complete all 15 routines. It is to build a small, purposeful repertoire that students can use with increasing independence.

Start with two or three routines that serve different needs. Use the same language consistently, document the thinking and revisit it. Over time, students should begin to say, “We need evidence for that claim,” “My thinking changed,” or “Whose viewpoint is missing?” without waiting for the teacher to supply the prompt.

Koncepts helps PYP educators align inquiry activities, questions and reflection with the concepts and learning intentions already present in their planning. Use it to organise possibilities, then apply professional judgement to choose the routine that will reveal the thinking your learners need next.

Explore Koncepts for PYP planning

References and Further Reading

1. Project Zero: PZ Thinking Routines
2. Project Zero: Thinking Routines Toolbox
3. Project Zero: See–Think–Wonder
4. Project Zero: Think–Puzzle–Explore
5. Project Zero: Connect–Extend–Challenge
6. Project Zero: Claim–Support–Question
7. Project Zero: Circle of Viewpoints
8. Project Zero: 3–2–1 Bridge
9. Project Zero: I Used to Think… Now I Think…