The Learning Adventure - An Innovative Approach To Planning!

The Learning Adventure is a simple scaffold for teachers which allows you to plan an exciting and engaging unit of learning for the children in your class. It follows an inquiry model used and followed by many creative and tech businesses when developing new products. This is a chance to deliver the curriculum in a modern and fun way that engages children and builds key skill that they will need for future success! Time to innovate!

The learning adventure is a cycle of stages in which the children follow to deepen their understanding of a skill. The most important thing is that all learning has a purpose or an end goal meaning that lessons are relevant and have direction. Although there is a cycle to follow, you and the children may find yourself moving back through previous stages before you can move on - this is ok! The cycle is intended to be adaptable and fluid. Learning journeys can range from short week long units to longer more in-depth termly units. It all depends on the content you want to teach.

​Stage 1 - Engage and Excite

The engage and excite phase of the learning adventure is designed to hook children in through fun activities and tasks but most importantly the whole unit of work is given a purpose! The unit task is introduced and children are encourage to engage with the task and start to think about ideas they may already have. Children can also begin to think about what they need to learn how to do in order to complete the challenge. They get to plan their adventure!

Real Classroom Examples

In a Year 3 English topic children were set the task to design their own magician's cloak. They were engaged by sketching and drawing a magician's cloak from a description book. the children realised that in order to create their own they should create their own description of a cloak before sketching and then creating their own in Design and Technology.

In a Year 5 Ancient Egypt topic, children were engaged by going on a virtual reality tour of a museum. The children were then tasked with the idea of creating their own ancient Egypt themed museum in their classrooms. The children planned what they wanted to learn about Egypt, what artefacts they needed to create and how they were going to communicated the facts they were going to learn via small information texts.

​Stage 2 - Discover and Inform

Discover and inform is all about the children learning new skills, facts and concepts. This can be research based but this is generally where lessons are more teacher led because the children to learning things they have learnt done before.

Real Classroom Examples

In the year 3 unit, children learnt about different description techniques and develop vocabulary focused on a magicians cloak. In design, the children were looking t materials and textures and learning new sewing techniques whilst in science they looked at properties of materials.

The children in Year 5 began to research Ancient Egypt and gathered information and facts about the historical period. In English, they analysed the structure of information texts and looked at formal approaches to writing. Meanwhile, their Art lessons focused on experimenting with different tools to sculpt clay

​Stage 3 - Gather and Practice

Once the children have developed a shallow understanding of the new information or skill, they then begin to apply it to their task and problem solve. This encourages children to deepen their learning and realise why it is relevant to their task.

The Year 3 children practiced their learning by creating experiments to evaluate the reflective properties of various materials in Science. The used their vocabulary to describe the materials they were using and texted which stitches were best used to attach each material in DT

The Year 5 children started to practice using formal writing using the information they had gathered about Ancient Egypt in history lessons. They looked at the shapes and textures they would need to recreate some Egyptian artefacts and practiced using their newly discovered clay techniques

​Stage 4 - Plan and Prepare

Once the children are ready and have all the skills necessary for the task, they can then plan and prepare what they are going to do to complete the challenge set at the beginning of the unit. This is a great opportunity for children to plan and share ideas in teams and communicate ideas. This stage and the next is really when you see children master the skills they have been working on.

The Year 3 children, began to plan their cloaks using the materials they had investigated in science. They drew sketches and labelled them with the type of stitches they were going to use and their reasons for their choice, pulling together their science and stitching knowledge. In English, they then began to select their best vocabulary and sentence ideas ready to write their description.

Whilst planning their layout for their museum, the year 5 children organised what information texts were needed and drew diagrams of the artefacts that  needed creating. They also planned that they needed to advertise their museum using a television persuasive advert and so they revisited the discovery and gathering stages to find out a little more about persuasive techniques.

​Stage 5 - Create and Innovate

This final stage is where the children complete their challenge or task set. They use their learning in a different way and create or innovate. Once they have created and completed their challenge, they then review and evaluate their outcome to self-assess exactly what they have achieved and what they would like to do next. The learning adventure is a cycle and once new targets have been set, this can evolve into a new engagement and a new learning adventure taking place.

In Year 3, the children created their magicians cloaks using their stitching techniques and materials they had planned to use. Over the lessons, the children were given peer assessment opportunities to evaluate their stitching techniques and the overall look of their product. The children then took pictures and actioned their next steps. At the same time, children completed their description writing. The picture led to their next writing unit where they created an explanation text of how to make a magician's cloak.

The children in Year 5, then created their artefacts our of clay and paper mache models. In english they drafted, revised and completed their information texts and filmed and recorded their tv adverts for their museum. Parents were invited in to the museum where the children became tour guides. Parents evaluated the museum using a digital survey which then led to their next topic in maths focused on data handling!

Learning Adventure Plan.docx
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Planning Sheet

Learning Adventure Plan.pdf
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To support you and your class with planning a unit. Here is a simple planning design to guide you through the planning process with your colleagues and perhaps even your children!