Then and Now, part three: weaving in the knowledge

In Part Three of 'Then and Now' (or: what I have been learning, or: how things have changed), I thought I'd write a bit about Mantle of the Expert and curriculum learning. I still don't think I get this 'right',  however, something worked quite well this week and I like it when things work quite well, so here it is. 

The Geographical Location of a Castle - Then.
In my first ever attempt at mantle, I approached a session on 'castle locations' not dissimilarly to how I had always done: 

1) King Brannagan wrote the children a letter asking for their advice on the best location for a castle

2) I delivered a lesson on this, looking at geographical features

3) The children wrote a report for the King

The children definitely enjoyed the lesson and wrote their reports. However, I prefer the way Mantle is (slowly) teaching me to weave knowledge into the story.

The Geographical Location of a Castle - Now.

I didn't really have a finished idea of how I would introduce my class to the geographical location of a castle, and their learning on this still is not finished. Unlike the above, I am attempting to drip the knowledge in over a series of sessions, rather than deliver one session with one outcome. I still don't know if this is going to work but it started off as well as it could, given it's the end of a long half term.

Bear with me, there are a lot of steps to this.

1) We co-created a woodland path (a glorious 45 minutes of creativity).

2) We undertook some drama around how the travellers might be travelling along said path.

3) I wondered aloud.... what if it was a dangerous path?

4) The travellers met a troll and worked to pass it without being harmed.

The next session....

5) Queen Matilda was seen poring over a map, which showed only a woodland path.

6) The children quickly identified that it was our woodland path.

7) They learned that Queen Matilda needed to know what lay beyond the path - she needed a good location for her castle but didn't know where that might be.

8) She listed some of the geographical features that she and the team would need.

9) The children went in groups either north, south, east or west to explore beyond the path and draw the features they found.

10) We did this outside of the story (their decision) so as they worked myself and my TA supported the groups with their knowledge and work. On the whole, they all had some idea of what geographical features were needed for a good castle location. Apart from the odd child who had drawn a golden unicorn onto their map, but... you know.

By the end of the session I felt like the children had some knowledge of geographical features that were needed for a good castle location. My plan now (unlike 'Then') is to continue to weave the children's maps and knowledge into the next mantle sessions so that it is revisited through the story. This is in contrast to 'Then' when the lesson was pretty much finished in one afternoon. 

It's a bit of a skill I'm learning with mantle - weaving knowledge into the story, rather than 'delivering' it and expecting it to be learnt by the end of the lesson. Not that there's anything wrong with delivering knowledge: I just prefer, in mantle, to take a different approach. Naturally, I tend to get this wrong more than I get it right, but when it works, it really works and it makes me happy.

For more on purposeful curriculum learning, this might be a useful post - see in particular the learning about ocean names and compass directions, another time the weaving wove well.