Free Workshop Plans & Resources

Download this guide to Ketso Connect for a visual overview of how Ketso works!.

Ketso is a hands-on kit for learning and talking together. In brief – there are different coloured leaves to write on. We ask a question and everyone writes their own thoughts and ideas on leaves. Then we share these ideas and put them on the Ketso for everyone to see. Then the next question, on the next colour. The leaves can be moved and arranged as our thinking progresses. Everyone is involved and heard – it’s fun! You can also follow the same process on your own, just without the talking part.

When you are done, you can take a picture as a record. The leaves can be rinsed clean in water, washed in warm soapy water, or wiped clean with a damp cloth ready for re-use (check you can read the leaves on the picture before you wash them).

Start by thinking –  what are the options?

For each option – what are the strengths / positive aspects?

What are the weaknesses / negative aspects?

Creative thinking  – how to make the most of the positives or overcome the negatives?

What are the most important issues to consider?

What does success look like? What are we trying to do?

Existing resources – what have we got to help us do this?

Future possibilities – what else can we do / how can we achieve our goals?

Challenges and barriers – what will stop us from succeeding?

Solutions to the challenges

What helps us move forward  is really important?

You can use a Ketso planner to develop a simple action plan – what needs to happen when to make your ideas come to life?

You can use the green leaves for actions, and arrange them on the grid in the order in which they need to happen

if you want to go into more depth, you can use the different coloured leaves for more aspects of the plan, for instance:

Who should do this?

Milestones

Budget

You can  use the icons to highlight particularly important points. What is the critical path?

Download these slides to give more ideas of how to use Ketso in your self-directed study.

You can also watch this presentation from PhD candidate and Teaching Assistant, Matt Sanderson, as he explains how he uses Ketso Connect in his studies.

Your child can use a Ketso Planner to organise assignments and activities for the day. We recommend you let your child be creative with how they want to develop their plan, but you might introduce the idea of using a simple colour code as a way of making sure that some of the things that they are supposed to do (e.g. schoolwork!) are included in their plans. The following is a possible way to use the leaves.

School work – to get started with younger children, you can write out ones you know will repeat, e.g. maths and reading, otherwise you can use this as a way to help them engage with the school work they are being set (brown)

Hobbies and practice – again you might write out ones you know  will repeat (e.g. violin practice and any sessions from hobbies that have been scheduled online) (grey)

Fun / creative activities

Being helpful

For more ideas on how to help your child plan their day or week, read this blog.

Write the topic in the centre of the felt. Before reading / watching a video etc, ask the learner/s to reflect on what they already know, and share it on the felt.

What do I already know?

What would I like to learn?

After the activity – What have I learned? Any new ideas?

An optional extra to go deeper:

What do I not understand / what did I find difficult?

Work together to develop answers / ideas about how to solve the challenges.

You can also use the icons to highlight particularly interesting ideas.

If you are trying to work at the same time as home-school, it is likely that you have had to leave the learner to their own devices for chunks of time. This exercise offers a good opportunity to go over the ideas learned, and a chance to check in about how your child is doing. See the next tab for a more in-depth way to use Ketso for revision of a topic.

What have I learned?

What has made me happy?  / What have I enjoyed?

What didn’t go so well?

How can we improve any problems?

This exercise can be done at the end of the day, end of a particular topic, or end of the week. You can keep it short by using just use 2 – 3 leaves per idea. It is helpful if you can join in – adding your own leaves, so it becomes more of a discussion between you. You can build this up over a few days so the learner/s can see progression and patterns emerging. You can rearrange the leaves to form clusters and label them with the white comments cards.

You can  use the icons to highlight particularly important points.

When reviewing learning it can be really helpful to see what comes to mind quickly, then arrange it in different ways so you can see patterns in the ideas. This deepens learning and aids memory.

Below are two possible ways to use the leaves for revision – the second goes into more depth.

What have I learned?

What do I not understand?

Answers to questions (especially good if working with more than one person)

What do I want to do with this learning?

You can use the icons to highlight particularly important points.

You can use the white comments cards to set out key themes  in advance for the topic under revision (like the branches on a mind map)- these are often given in the Learning Outcomes / overview of the module. Alternatively, you can just start placing the leaves, moving them around to create clusters and see what themes emerge – these can then be labelled with the comments cards.

An alternative is to use the different colours of leaves for different aspects of learning, suitable to the topic being reviewed such as:

Social studies / geography / history

Key ideas

Evidence / how do we know these facts?

Key people and actions

Places and their characteristics

Coming up with meanings for the different colours of leaves can itself be part of the revision – what types of knowledge / facts am I supposed to know?

After reading a book or story, you can recap and explore the key ideas with Ketso. You can do this in several different ways (adjust the language and difficulty by age group!):

Exploring the story

What happens? / Actions

You may want to start with writing the main characters on the white comments cards, then using these to ask – what happens to each of the characters?

Places and what are they like? / Descriptions of them

Feelings and emotions (yellow for positive / good feelings,

(grey for negative / bad feelings)

Write ideas on leaves using the colour codes – cluster the ideas on the felt and see what themes emerge.

Themes can be labelled using the white comments cards.

OR you can pre-prepare the branches / themes by writing on the white comments cards and putting them on the felt, with two options, either writing out the chapters, or a simpler version:

• Beginning
• Middle
• End
• Whole story / cross-cutting

You can also use the icons to highlight particularly interesting ideas.

You can use this exercise to explore a book in more depth, or it can be a creative writing exercise – where you develop the characters and their feelings and actions as inspiration for a story line.

Think about different characters and their feelings.

Use different coloured leaves for each character, noting what they did and how they felt. If there is more than one learner, each participant can have one leaf colour and write down the ideas for one character.

Share the ideas onto the felt – are there any similar actions and feelings? Create clusters with those leaves.

Can you write a different story line? What if one of the characters did something different? How would it change the feelings (and maybe even actions) of the other characters?

A simple version of this exercise is just to use leaves to brainstorm ideas on the topic, then arrange the leaves in clusters of similar ideas on the felt, and to move them around to create an order so that one idea leads to the next.

If there is more than one person, each can use a different colour of leaf.  With older learners ,they can use white comments cards to label any themes  as they emerge (these can become sub-headings).

If you want to give more assistance, you can set out some key themes (e.g. questions asked / prompts given by the tutor in advance on the white comments cards, and ask the learner to develop ideas around these using leaves.

Developing an argument in more depth

Write the topic on the centrepiece or a white comments card. then use the different coloured leaves to develop your thinking around this topic, clustering them on the felt, and then moving them around to create a story line and argument.

Ideas, arguments / what do you know about the topic

Strengths / arguments for these ideas

Weaknesses / arguments against these ideas

So what? what conclusions can we draw / what are the key points? (Optional extra)

You can also use the icons to highlight particularly interesting ideas.

Children of different ages learning together

In lockdown many parents are home schooling with children of different ages. You can use Ketso for activities they can do together, with each working at different levels but sharing and organising their leaves together.

This may be especially helpful if a younger child who is not getting schooling is feeling left out and wants to join in.

For instance, if discussing a documentary / BBC bitesized session that you have watched, you could use the colours to ask:

Brown: what did we learn?

The answers will vary depending on the age, but they can all be shared and clustered into groups of similar ideas. The older child/ren can label the clusters – what are these examples of?

You could ask supplementary questions, such as:

Grey: what questions do we have / what did we not understand?

Green: answers to the questions

Older child/ren can be challenged to see if they can carry on and learn more if they can’t answer the questions.

You can also deepen the exploration with more questions, for instance if the topic was suitable, you could ask:

Yellow: What is good about /  what are the strengths of the topic / issue that was discussed

Grey: What was not good about / What are the weaknesses

Green: Ideas for improvement / creative thinking about the topic – what else could be done?

For a much younger child who wants to join in, they could draw an image to go onto the group felt. The older child/ren could think of a relevant word for the topic, write each letter of the word on a separate leaf and work with the younger child to spell the word by putting the leaves together.

The older child/ren could also write out a sentence, with one word per leaf, and then work with the younger one to put the words into a sentence.

You can adapt many of the exercises above in this way – for instance with the exercises around stories and comprehension, the younger child could draw a picture on a leaf of the characters, or draw smiley or sad faces on an icon to put next to the names of the characters, or the actions to show how they felt about them.

You may also want to read this guest blog about how one family used Ketso to help two children of different ages, with very different scheuildes and instructions from their school, to organise their learning.

Conversation Focus (centre of felt): Understanding the world right now

Themes (branches)

• People & Family
• Personal
• Society changes
• Nature & Earth
• Blank * 2

Question sequence

Brown: What is good in the world now?

Grey: What are your concerns / fears / worries about the world now?

Green: Come up with solutions or creative ways forward to other people’s grey leaves. It could be stuff individuals can do, or it can just be ideas for what needs to happen. (So – ask people to look at some of the ‘grey’ challenges that the others wrote and think about solutions to them, not their own. This is because if people could just solve their own easily, probably not a big challenge in the first place!). When you put them down point at the grey leaf in question.

Yellow: What good could come of this?

One final green each: What one thing are you going to do differently to help the good ideas come true? (Can use an action card here if you have them instead of green leaf (the cardboard like-a-business-card piece), so an individual can take it with them to keep afterwards)

You can also use the icons to highlight particularly interesting ideas.

Conversation Focus (centre): Happy, healthy & productive – working and studying at home together

Themes (branches)

• People
• Activities
• Spaces & Places
• Blank *2

Question sequence

Brown: What is good about being at home like this?

Grey: What is difficult or challenging or bad?

Green: Come up with solutions or creative ways forward to other people’s grey leaves. (So – ask people to look at some of the ‘grey’ challenges that the others wrote and think about solutions to them, not their own. This is because if people could just solve their own easily, probably not a big challenge in the first place!). When you put them down, point at the grey leaf in question.

Yellow: What can we do, or try, to make this better for everyone (individuals or together)?

(Optional 1– everyone take 1 or 2 icons to show what they think is most important – can be anything.

Optional 2 – then out of those, whole group agrees top 3 to prioritise)

You could do this check in daily or weekly – as often as it seems to be useful.

Brown: What are you grateful for today?

Green: What has been creative or interesting or fun today?

Grey: Has anything been troubling or difficult today?

Green: How can we make anything better for each other?

Yellow: What is going to be good tomorrow?

This is a freeform, blank Ketso  – put similar ideas next to each other, different ones further apart. Do this in the sequence suggested above, so you start with the positive!

Tae one colour at a time and each person takes a few leaves to write or draw their ideas on their own, before sharing them. Share the ideas with one person reading one idea and placing it on the felt, then the next person reading one idea and placing it on the felt.

Communicating and being heard under stress

Struggling to be heard or understood? Try this.

Preparation

This is a process for 2 people (could be adapted).

Each person take their own felt (a planner, a mini, a folded over big felt – you need 2 of any kind for this App)

Choose a colour each and get a  pile of your colour leaves at the ready.

Process

Do this in silence. Especially if emotionally charged, but useful anytime for this.

On your felt – write what it is that you wish the other person to know / hear or understand.

When both are ready, swap felts and read.

Write your responses, on your colour, and put them on their felt, pointing at the ideas they relate to.

Swap and read responses.

Repeat write / swap until both parties are happy to end the process, and express this clearly.

‘Who knows who’ –  fun way to learn more about each other

Prepare

Everyone take 3-5 grey leaves (this can be any number – there will be as many rounds as there are cards each).

Everyone write a question on each of their grey leaves. Somebody is going to read that card – and the question is going to be about them, or about their point of view.

So the question could be simple: e.g. What is your favourite colour? Which is your longest toe?

Or more complex: What is your opinion on the legal system?

Or plain silly nonsense: What is orange minus a fish?

Or personal: How old were you when you…?

Make it something that:

• You think it would be funny or interesting to ask someone else
• You would be OK to answer yourself – because it might be you that gets that question!

When all questions are written, mix them all together – upside down so they can’t be read, and shuffle them like a deck of cards to randomise the order. Place face down in the middle. Someone needs to keep score – could use Ketso, but for simplicity start with pen and paper like scrabble.

Play

One person at a time picks the top leaf and reads it out.

Who goes first?  We suggest: ‘The person who looks the most like a Ketso’, but of course you are free to decide by any method you wish.

Pick the top leaf. Read it out. Now everyone has to think and write an answer on another leaf. Use green brown as you wish, doesn’t matter.

The reader of the question uses yellow for their answer.

Keep the answers secret for now.

Important – the answer is what you think the person reading out the grey, question leaf will say in answer to that question

E.g. If it is Jim’s turn to read out the card, everyone writes down what they think Jim’s answer will be, not their own answer. (Unless you are Jim, of course, in which case we hope it is the same!)

When everyone has written their answer:

Place the question on the Ketso, anywhere there is space. Go round and everybody reads out their answer one at a time and puts it next to the question. The reader goes last with the ‘correct’ answer.

The reader of the question then gives everyone a score according to the following:

-5: That is the exact opposite of what I said

-2: I would never have said that

0:  Neither bad nor good answer

3:  I could have said that, but didn’t

5:  Got it right. Great answer.

Take turns being the ‘reader of the question’ until all questions are done, and then total up the scores!

Be careful – the winner knows more about you all than you thought. Could be dangerous.

Quick and amusing way to come up with creative or funny ideas. Good fun on its own or to generate starting creative ideas for other projects.

Silly stories – Version 1

Preparation

Everyone write the following in secret:

Green (4 leaves each): Characters

Brown (4 leaves each): Contexts / places / settings

Yellow (2 leaves each): Something good that happens

Grey (2 leaves each): Something bad that happens

These are all at random, create as much variety as possible.

Put all the green together, shuffled, face down.

Put all the brown together, shuffled, face down.

Put all the greys and yellows together, shuffled, face down.

So you will now have 3 piles, face down, in the order: green (characters) / brown (context or place) / grey & yellow (something that happens).

Play

(Take in turns to turn the cards but everyone plays every round anyway so this is not important)

1 Turn over and place one card from each of the 3 piles in the following order

Character … Setting … Something happens

That will give you a little situation, for example (from our games):

Dom the dancer / Under the bed / Won the lottery

2 Everyone take one white comment card– write ‘How did it end / What happens next?”. Share and put down one at a time when ready.

So for each turn we have one line with as many green ‘endings’ as there are players.

For example, for the examples above, these are a couple of ‘stories’ the Ketso team came up with:

Dom the dancer / Under the bed / Won the lottery /Now he dares to dream of dancing in the open

Kevin / In a tent / Drank a magic flying potion / Too bad there’s nowhere to fly in a tent

Silly stories – Version 2

This is a Ketso variation of the old ‘fold the paper’ game.

Play instructions

Everyone take a leaf and write the first line of a story. Leaf colour can just be random, or you can use them to have meaning – some options are shown below.

Pass to the next person.

They write the next line on a new leaf, and put it on the top so that only what they just wrote is visible.

Pass to the next person who can just see the last line only.

They write the next line, and put it on the top so that only what they just wrote is visible.

Pass to the next person.

Keep going until you have been round once, or twice, or until you just can’t stand it anymore.

‘Unpack’ the stories, one at a time. Put the top idea at the bottom, the next one above, until there are none left and then the person who put that story down reads it out to the group, top to bottom!

Optional – get more sophisticated with your Ketso use by using the colours to reflect the mood of the story as you write it. E.g. yellow for positive twists, grey for problems, green for creativity, etc.

Optional – pick a leaf colour at random each go, and write something that fits with the colour of the leaf as per above.

Optional – create rules about when the end comes (e.g. roll a dice every go, and if it is 6 you have to write the last line. Or whatever – have fun!)