A1 Smart or Not?

What can machines do, and what do people do better?

Ready to teach

Ready to teach. Every lesson uses printed or hand-drawn cards, so you can teach it today with no software.

For children to do on their own. Every lesson has a step-by-step do-it-yourself version with a self-check. Open the kids’ version.

By the end, children can say

Format. Fully unplugged, with picture and audio support. No reading needed.

Key words. machine, smart helper, example, guess, private, rule.

Curriculum tags.

The current national curriculum does not mention AI by name, so each course is tagged to the strands it supports.

Open a lesson to see the steps. Printing this page opens them all.

Lesson 1: Machines and PeopleI can say one thing a machine does well and one thing people do better.

Hook (5 min). Show a calculator and a child. Ask who is better at adding big numbers, and who is better at telling a joke.
Teach (5 min). Machines are fast at following rules; people can feel, imagine and care.
Try (15 min). Sort picture cards (counting 1000 things, comforting a friend, spelling a long word, inventing a game) into “machine good”, “person good” and “both”.
Check (5 min). Thumbs up if a machine can do it.

Lesson 2: Helpers Around UsI can spot smart helpers in everyday life.

Hook (5 min). Play a mystery sound of a voice assistant or a sat-nav voice (recorded, not live).
Teach (5 min). Some helpers learn from lots of examples, some only follow fixed rules.
Try (15 min). A “smart helper spotter” walk around the room, or a picture page: ring the smart helpers (maps app, recommending videos, a toaster).
Check (5 min). Which one do you think learned from examples?

Lesson 3: Sorting GameI can show how a machine can learn by looking at examples.

Hook (5 min). Sort 6 animal cards (3 cats, 3 dogs) into two piles.
Teach (5 min). A child is the “robot” who has never seen a cat or a dog. Give it 4 labelled examples (training), then new cards to guess (testing).
Try (15 min). Groups train a partner-robot with 2 examples, then 6. Compare the correct guesses.
Share (5 min). Why did more examples help? What if we only showed brown dogs?

Want a screen version for the teaching moment? The “Teach the machine” activity on the Try page shows the same idea.

Lesson 4: Robots Get It WrongI know a smart helper can make mistakes and I should check.

Hook (5 min). A “robot” (the teacher) confidently names a clearly wrong picture. Laugh, then ask what went wrong.
Teach (5 min). A smart helper guesses; guesses can be wrong; people check.
Try (15 min). Spot the mistake: picture pairs where a helper’s answer is right or wrong. Children fix the wrong ones.
Check (5 min). Who should check a robot’s answer?

Extension: funny picture mix-ups (a muffin and a dog) where children explain why a robot was fooled.

Lesson 5: Be Kind to DataI can say what information is private.

Hook (5 min). A mystery bag with a “secret” item. Some things we share, some we keep.
Teach (5 min). Private information: full name, address, school, passwords, photos of faces. Ask a trusted grown-up first.
Try (15 min). Sort cards into “fine to share” and “keep private”. (The Try page has an on-screen version.)
Check (5 min). The class chorus: “Ask a grown-up first.”

Lesson 6: Our Rules for Smart HelpersI can make and explain 3 simple rules for using smart helpers safely.

Plan (7 min). Recall: smart helpers learn from examples, make mistakes, and need privacy rules.
Make (15 min). Each child draws a poster with 3 rules (for example, “check the answer”, “keep secrets private”, “ask a grown-up”).
Share (5 min). Gallery walk and a badge. A take-home card prompts a chat at home.
Check (3 min). Picture quiz on all five ideas.

Ask your child which things at home are smart helpers, and which only follow fixed rules.
Ask: “What could a smart helper get wrong?”
Practise the class chorus together: “Ask a grown-up first.”

Who made this? What was it trained on? Where else can I check?