Mission 17: In and out of the Maybe Pot Ideas • Play games where some things ‘fit a rule’ and others don’t. Use real objects (toys, food items, clothes,..) and ask the child to put them one at a time into a Maybe Pot (which could be a real pot, a box, a cushion or so on). If the thing matches your rule, leave it in, if it doesn’t, take them out. The rule could be green/not green, food/not food, clothes/not clothes, round/not round, toy/not toy.  • You could get more ambitious later: toys with 2 legs/toys with 4 legs, toys with wheels/without wheels.  • Take turns and let the child set the rules and do the judging.  The criteria may be a bit strange or surprising at times (‘toys I like/toys I don’t like much’) but don’t try to make them be too precise. If you can’t work out their rule, ask them to describe it. • Around the house and when out and about, decide on a rule in advance and say ‘in the pot’ or ‘not in the pot’ as you come across things – the rule could be ‘bigger than me’ or ‘red things’ or ‘things that move by themselves’.  There may well be interesting discussions as a result – can cars ‘move by themselves’?  On a hill with the hand brake off?  The Puzzler, the Shape Japer and the Numbertaker all set puzzles for the Agent to solve. This mission focuses on problem solving, specifically the deduction of which items will stay in the Maybe Pot and which will not.  Children try putting things in the pot. If they match the unknown ‘rule’ for what will be accepted, the item stays in the pot. If it doesn’t match the rule, it will be rejected. By comparing the things that are accepted and those that are not, children should slowly begin to narrow down what is wanted. Vocabulary: puzzle, problem, find out why, rule, triangle, square, circle, rule, smaller than, bigger than. .