Access keys | Skip to primary navigation | Skip to secondary navigation | Skip to content | Skip to footer |
Problems viewing this site

Learning and development areas

Active learning: Learning and development area

Active learning helps children to build positive dispositions and approaches towards learning. It encourages increasing confidence, engagement and involvement in learning and the development of curiosity, problem-solving, creative thinking and investigation processes.

As active learners, children are developing understandings of themselves and their world, and creating their ideas through imaginative and dramatic play. They are showing an interest in technologies and the uses of different technologies.

Teachers use intentional teaching practices such as:

  • encouraging curiosity, investigating and problem-solving in everyday situations
  • challenging children to make links between ideas and experiences
  • identifying and imagining ways to use voice, language, gestures, costumes and/or props related to roles in dramatic play
  • explaining new vocabulary in different contexts.
Significant learning
  • knowledge, skills and dispositions
 Emerging phase
  • In familiar situations
  • with explicit support
 Exploring phase
  • in familiar situations
  • with occasional support
 Extending phase
  • in new situations
  • with occasional prompting
Showing curiosity and enthusiasm for learning
  • showing curiosity
  • shows curiosity about familiar learning
  • explores through imitation, e.g. copies then repeats learning
  • shows curiosity and enthusiasm for building on familiar learning
  • extends on previous learning activities, e.g. ‘What happens if I add another level of blocks to the building?’
  • shows curiosity and eagerly explores new learning
  • explores and questions new learning, e.g. ‘Yesterday I only used blocks. Today I will make towers using yoghurt containers.’
  • making choices, planning and carrying out plans for learning
  • makes choices about familiar projects
  • chooses materials to use in a project, e.g. two cars to race
  • organises resources and carries out projects
  • plans and attempts a project, e.g. ‘I need those blocks to build my tower.’
  • independently plans, selects resources and carries out projects
  • plans, organises materials and completes projects, e.g. draws a building, finds the blocks and builds it
Problem-solving, investigating and reflecting on learning
  • building problem-solving strategies
  • watches how others solve a problem
  • follows suggestions to solve problems, e.g. ‘Maybe if you get some water and mix it in the sand it will stay together.’
  • uses modelled strategies for problemsolving
  • solves a problem by asking, e.g. ‘I need water to mix with the sand to make castles.’
  • generates strategies for problem-solving
  • finds ways to solve a problem, e.g. notices the glue is not sticking items together, so finds some sticky tape
  • developing strategies for investigations
  • answers questions using information provided
  • e.g. uses dinosaur cards to find out which dinosaur is the biggest
  • uses modelled strategies to investigate
  • follows modelled strategies to find information, e.g. ‘A dinosaur book may tell us what they eat.’
  • applies strategies to investigate and find information
  • researches dinosaur fossils, e.g. uses books, asks questions and uses digital technologies to investigate
  • reflecting on learning
  • makes links to prior learning
  • uses visual cues to reflect on learning, e.g. refers to photos as a reminder of what they did
  • makes links between prior and new learning
  • connects experiences, e.g. ‘Last time I saw a possum, it was nighttime. This possum is out in the daytime.’
  • makes links to new learning
  • asks, ‘Is the owl like a possum because they are both awake at night?’
Being imaginative and creative
  • creating through imaginative and dramatic play
  • begins to use imagination to pretend
  • watches and copies others in imaginative play, e.g. pretends to be an animal when playing
  • uses imagination to pretend, roleplay and create stories
  • understands imagining and what is ‘real’ in roleplay or stories, e.g. ‘This ship is sinking in the sandpit, so we have to save the animals.’
  • uses imagination to pretend, roleplay and create complex narratives
  • actively uses imaginative ideas and processes, e.g. creates a story and suggests places to find treasure
  • exploring the arts and different ways to represent ideas
  • begins to use materials
  • copies ways to use materials, e.g. paints a rainbow like their friend has done
  • explores and creates with different materials
  • uses materials to represent ideas, e.g. uses a block to represent a phone
  • explores, creates and innovates with new materials
  • uses materials to create and represent ideas, e.g. uses a cardboard cylinder as a pirate’s telescope?’
  • responding and communicating through the arts
  • responds to aspects of the arts
  • responds to rhythm by beating time to a song, e.g. clapping along with others
  • responds and makes meaning through the arts
  • shares personal ideas, e.g. ‘I can be a tree using these scarves as my leaves.’
  • readily responds and makes meaning through the arts
  • retells a story using different voices for characters

Teachers use intentional teaching practices such as:

  • collaborating to share children’s ideas, knowledge and discoveries
  • encouraging children to notice, hypothesise, experiment, record and share findings
  • identifying new vocabulary in different contexts
  • explaining the reasons why experiments did or did not work
  • making connections to other aspects of problem-solving that children may need to consider.
Significant learning
  • knowledge, skills and dispositions
 Emerging phase
  • In familiar situations
  • with explicit support
 Exploring phase
  • in familiar situations
  • with occasional support
 Extending phase
  • in new situations
  • with occasional prompting
Applying knowledge in different contexts
  • developing awareness of science inquiry
  • shows curiosity
  • watches as bubbles blow away in the wind, blows more and chases them
  • hypothesises and tests assumptions
  • hypothesises, e.g. ‘I think the ice will melt when you pour water on it,’ then checks the result
  • hypothesises, tests assumptions and shares discoveries
  • hypothesises that mixing paint will change the colours, e.g. says ‘I think red and yellow will make orange’, observes the result, then says, ‘See, I told you!’
Sharing ideas and discoveries
  • contributing to conversations about learning
  • responds to questions about learning
  • recalls learning, e.g. ‘Yesterday, we melted ice.’
  • asks questions and shares ideas about learning
  • builds on learning, e.g. ‘Our fort fell over. Will using big blocks be better?’
  • shares ideas and explains discoveries about learning
  • explains discoveries, e.g. ‘I saved water because I folded the hose over so the water stopped until I got to the plants.’

Teachers use intentional teaching practices such as:

Significant learning
  • knowledge, skills and dispositions
 Emerging phase
  • In familiar situations
  • with explicit support
 Exploring phase
  • in familiar situations
  • with occasional support
 Extending phase
  • in new situations
  • with occasional prompting
Showing interest in technologies
  • representing technology in play situations
  • begins to use real or pretend technologies in play
  • uses a block to be a mobile phone and pretends to talk to mum
  • uses real or pretend technologies in play and inquiry
  • looks through a cylinder at the sky and says, ‘Look, I’ve made a telescope. I can see the stars.’
  • uses technologies in play and enquiry experiences
  • uses materials to represent a camera and pretends to take photos
Using technologies
  • using different technologies
  • uses familiar technologies
  • uses a magnifying glass to find bugs in the garden
  • uses technologies to find information
  • says, ‘We can Google it.’
  • uses technologies to research new learning
  • researches on internet device, finds photos of dinosaurs and explains new information
Last updated:
30 November 2023

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Back to top