Rock, Paper, Scissors

Ages: 5-11
Contributor:
Sam Collins

Three very different characters help each other out and become firm friends.

Watch this video with your children and then try some of our teaching and activity ideas below.

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

Stop the film at 0:56, before the Android logo comes up. Explain this is a film to promote a brand – what brand do you think it could be and what makes you think that?
Write instructions to play the game “Rock Paper Scissors”.
Compare with some other stories about bullying, for example, There’s a boy in the girls’ bathroom by Louis Sachar and Willy the Wimp by Anthony Browne.
Create social media profiles for the three main characters. What are their names? What kinds of things do they like to do?
Stop the film at various points (for example 0:03 0:12 0:48). What are the characters thinking?
Write and perform a play based on the advert.
Write a letter from one of the main characters describing the events of the film.
Stop the film at 0:17 and write a description of each of the bullying characters. What details are added to make them more convincing characters?
Write the story from the viewpoint of one of the bullies.
Write what happens next. What adventures do the friends go on together?
Write a report about the bullying incidents for the school’s head teacher.

Put the class into groups of three. Two play an agreed number of games of Rock, Paper, Scissors ( ideally 100) while the other records the winner each time. Before you start, ask the children to predict which one will win most often. Transfer findings on to a bar chart or other way of presenting the information. Did the results confirm their initial ideas? Why or why not? Discuss what might influence the results. Compare results between groups. If there are differences, why might that be?

The three rocks in the film are all of different types. Give the children a collection of different types of rock and investigate their properties using these resources.

From the beginning of the film to 0:08, the paper has to walk through a crowd of different types of scissors. Why do we have different types? What are different types good for? Can you think of any other tools where there are different types for different jobs?
Give children a range of materials to cut (such as different types of fabric, stiff card, paper) and different scissors to cut with (for example, pinking shears, nail scissors, ordinary classroom scissors etc.) Which scissors are best suited to which task? Why?
Find out how paper is made. This video may help:

What other songs would work well for this film? What kind of message should the lyrics have?

Investigate different ways of jumping. Can you knock your heels together, like the characters do at the end of the fim? Can you use a scissor action to jump over something? What other ways can you jump?

Use the film as a prompt to talk about bullying. Bullying UK has lots of Anti Bullying Week resources you could use.
The title of the film is; Rock, Paper, Scissors. Be Together. Not the Same. What do you think that means?
At various points in the film, the three main characters experience fear. When have you felt frightened? What can you do about it? How does it feel?
Decorating rocks and leaving them to be found is a very popular activity on Social Media. Why do you think that is? Do you do it?