Our Exceptional Explorers Competition will support your children to experience a wider world and spark their creative writing. We have a few ideas to help you bring the competition into your lessons and topic.
Select an Experience
Explore our Experiences to find one that matches your topic and will bring it to life in the classroom. You can look through our 80 Experiences by Key Stage and subject (EYFS, KS1, KS2) or search the Experience Planner below to get inspired.
Or you can search by writing task type in this spreadsheet where Steph our social media whizz has collected together all the writing Experiences available for different travel Experiences.
You can then enter your pupils' pieces of writing in our Exceptional Explorers Competition.
We've chosen Rainforests below to show you an example of how you could use now>press>play to get creative with our Exceptional Explorer's Competition, but this sequence of lessons could be applied to any one of our Experiences that fit with your current topic.
Rainforests 6 week lesson plan
Week 1
This week you'll be introducing a new topic to the class - Rainforests!
- Spend this week looking at imagery and listening to sounds/watching videos that link to the Rainforests topic (see example sources below that you can source online)
- Connect the now>press>play transmitter and headphones to your audio source when playing the videos. This will enhance your pupils’ listening experience.
- Use the glossary to introduce new vocabulary
At the end of Week 1 build up excitement by telling the children that this week they'll be going to the Amazon Rainforest themselves!
- What will it be like?
- How are they feeling?
- Are they excited, nervous, worried ETC?
WHAT IS A RAINFOREST? WHERE ARE RAINFORESTS LOCATED IN THE WORLD AND WHAT ARE THEY LIKE?
Week 2
This week the children will take part in the Experience.
TRAVEL TO THE AMAZON. "YOU'RE INSIDE THE RAINFOREST. WIPE YOUR BROW - IT'S HOT, DAMP AND DARK AMONGST THE DENSE TREES."
Week 3
Following the Experience you can use our quiz and our story board to remind children of the story and discuss what they've learnt. This could prompt a lesson around timelines/sequencing, or creating their own Rainforests quiz from their knowledge so far.
"WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER FROM THE EXPERIENCE?" USE OUR QUIZ AND STORYBOARD TO RECAP.
Week 4
Children could be split into groups and provided with an extract from our Rainforests script to practice and perform TOGETHER, promoting speaking and listening.
YOU CAN USE A MIC OR A VOICE/VIDEO RECORDING APP TO RECORD THEIR PERFORMANCES.
Week 5
Last week you recorded the children in groups performing their own Rainforests Experience. This week provide children with the now>press>play headphones so that they can listen to it back and hear the work from the other groups too.
YOU CAN THEN USE OUR READING COMPREHENSION RESOURCES TO ROUND UP WHAT THEY HAVE LEARNT FROM THE EXPERIENCE.
Week 6
This week will be all about writing. We provide many writing opportunities with each Experience to give you some ideas.
The start of the week could be all about creating a plan for the writing either in groups or individually, before finishing with an extended write.
DURING THE WRITE YOU CAN GIVE EACH CHILD A PAIR OF HEADPHONES AND PLAY RAINFOREST SOUNDS THROUGH YOUTUBE TO HELP WITH THEIR FOCUS.
Reward your Exceptional Explorers
Send us your pupils' work either by email to steph@nowpressplay.co.uk or by post to now>press>play, Falkirk Street, London, N1 6HQ (with their first name or initials attached to their work).
Not only will they each receive an Exceptional Explorer Sticker but will also they might win and get featured in our Exceptional Explorer Summer Scrapbook which will be published in July!
Find out more about the competition
CLAIM YOUR SCHOOL'S FREE 2-WEEK TRIAL!
Below are some other lesson plans kindly shared by teachers using now>press>play:
Emma's half term lesson plan for Stone Age Earthquakes Themed Week Literacy Lesson Plan Meteorite Newspaper Article Themed Week Literacy Lesson Plan Scheme of work for WW1 Remembrance week
