Build vocabulary and deepen knowledge – teaching materials with Explorify​

Explorify is a free, award winning resource for primary schools which can help build children’s long-term memory and provide opportunities to practice science topic specific vocabulary. All the activities are talk based, giving children the chance to verbally explain their thinking with a partner before whole-class discussions. This helps children refine their understanding and particularly benefits pupils from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds1.  

The ASE session looked at the new Explorify activities that have been developed to help teach children about Materials, as well as some of the tried and trusted activities that have been updated. We discussed how some activities are particularly useful for formative assessment; helping teachers to easily find out what children already know about the learning focus, including uncovering misconceptions and identifying strengths in children's prior knowledge. This helps to plan future lessons. Other activities allow children to revisit and consolidate what they have learnt during the unit. This helps children remember and deepen their understanding.   

Accompanying the new Materials resources, Explorify has published two guides with suggestions about how to use the activities for retrieval practice for 5 – 7 years old  and  7 - 12 years old. These can also be found on Sched. The guides look at each learning focus and suggest relevant activities for formative assessment, supporting teacher’s subject knowledge, supporting teachers with science enquiry and activities for consolidating learning. 

There are also two new glossaries covering the key words children need to learn: 5 – 7 years old and 7 – 12 years old. These cover the difference between words like strong and hard and vocabulary like thermal and electrical insulation. This will help teachers ensure that children use the correct vocabulary from early on. 

The new Explorify resources follow on from a teacher pilot in 2022/23, where the Explorify team worked with teachers to trial the use of Explorify activities purposefully for retrieval practice in the areas of teeth, digestion and food chains. The approaches used were based on cognitive psychology research about how children learn. All the teachers in the pilot reported that using Explorify activities had a positive effect on building the children’s long-term memory.