Chunking Knowledge: Designing Tasks That Help Children Think Part 3
Help children make sense of what they’re learning by teaching them to group and chunk knowledge.
📚 Catch Up on the Series
Missed a part? Here’s what we’ve covered so far:
📦 Part 1: Organising Knowledge
Why organising knowledge makes learning stick — and how it helps shape what children remember.
🧱 Part 2: Selecting Task Types
Choosing the right structure to match the thinking: Compare, Sequence, Cause & Effect, Chunk.
Six powerful task examples that group ideas into meaningful mental ‘buckets’.
🏅 Part 4: Ranking and Comparing Knowledge
From Diamond 9s to Target Maps — helping children weigh, prioritise, and reason.
🔁 Part 5: Sequencing Knowledge
From timelines to swim lanes — helping children structure ideas, actions, and events so they flow and make sense
⚙️ Part 6: Cause and Effect Knowledge
From fishbone diagrams to consequence maps — helping children understand why things happen and what they lead to.
💡 The Big Idea
Chunking is the process of grouping information into meaningful parts so it becomes easier to understand, remember, and apply. In this post, we’ll explore what chunking looks like in action, across phases and at different stages of instruction, with six practical examples to use in your classroom.
👀 A Closer Look
Chunking isn’t a single task. It’s a method of thinking we want children to develop to help them organise what they learn. Depending on when we use it, chunking can serve different functions. We can set chunking tasks:
🧠 To explain and encode new learning
🔁 To embed and organise understanding as it develops
🎯 To consolidate and retrieve knowledge over time
Let’s explore six examples of chunking tasks used across the primary phase, including two from early years, and look at how each one supports children in turning information into meaningful knowledge.
🖼️ Example Task 1: A Focus Map
This task asks pupils to draw on their knowledge of Elizabeth I to explain the significance of specific features in a portrait. Each visual cue prompts children to recall key chunks of knowledge (e.g. the Armada, the crown, her clothing) and consider why the artist chose to include them
.
✏️ Used for: Retrieval and application of prior knowledge that has already been shared.
🔎 Why it works: It encourages children to organise what they know into symbolic categories (chunks) - power, victory, leadership etc.
🌳 Example Task 2: Zoom In
In this task, pupils colour-code or underline sections of text to match parts of a diagram. In this case, the information text is being chunked into categories based on the rainforest layers. The act of linking visual information with specific chunks of text helps organise knowledge into groups.
✏️ Used for: Encoding new content as it’s taught
🔎 Why it works: It slows the reading process and prompts pupils to categorise key ideas by rainforest layer - emergent, canopy, understory and floor.
🔗 Example Task 3: Connections
Here, children are given a selection of images chunked into hexagons. Their job is to explain why these images belong together and have already been grouped. What connects them conceptually or thematically?
✏️ Used for: Explaining, reasoning, consolidating understanding and retrieval
🔎 Why it works: This reverses the chunking process. Pupils must uncover the organising principle behind the chunks, which deepens reasoning and links knowledge to meaning.
💭 Chunking Task 4: Three Thoughts
This task invites pupils to consider three viewpoints and infer their perspectives based on what they’ve learned. The act of organising key traits, motivations, or knowledge into character profiles supports schema-building and to support narrative understanding. But the same task could easily be adapted to chunk the viewpoints of historical events or the geographical viewpoints of the decision to build a new housing estate in an area of natural beauty in rural England.
Matilda, in the Roald Dhal book of the same name, starts travelling to the local library on her own, which ignites her love of reading, knowledge and learning. But different characters will have different viewpoints of the same part of the story.
Matilda’s perspective: Freedom, imagination, joy in learning
Her parents’ perspective: Disobedience, concern about values
The librarian’s perspective: Curiosity and concern for her well-being
✏️ Used for: Retrieval, encoding and consolidaton of knowledge
🔎 Why it works: Children must isolate and group information relevant to each character, forming conceptually coherent ‘chunks’ of knowledge around each perspective.
👧 Practical FS/KS1 Ideas
Chunking isn’t just for Key Stage 2. In fact, it’s especially powerful in early years settings when children are developing conceptual categories and early schema. Here are two more examples of chunking in continuous/enhanced provision that are clearly linked to ELGs and EYFS learning behaviours:
🐾 Chunking Task 5: Animal Habitats Sorting Station
In enhanced provision, children are invited to sort small world animals into trays labelled forest, desert, ocean etc. Add natural textures like sand, leaves, or water beads to deepen sensory engagement. Prompt thinking with questions like, “Why does the penguin belong here?” or “Could a tiger live in the ocean?”
🔎 Supports:
Understanding the World – The Natural World (ELG)
Making links and noticing patterns in their experience (COEL: Creating and Thinking Critically)
🧠 Encourages children to chunk animal knowledge by environment, linking knowledge of animals and habitat features.
🧱 Chunking Task 6: Wet Sand Play – Moulding and Shaping
In the sand area, children explore a progression of shaping skills using wet sand. Begin with moulding with hands, then introduce tools for shaping, and finally encourage adding details like windows, patterns, or features using sticks, shells, or other small manipulatives.
You might set up prompts or photo cards showing the stages of skill development to help children recognise and talk about what they’re doing.
🔎 Supports:
Physical Development – Fine Motor Skills (ELG)
Expressive Arts and Design – Creating with Materials (ELG)
Playing and exploring; Active learning (COEL)
🧠 Helps children chunk the process of moulding and shaping into manageable, progressive steps. This supports their ability to sequence physical actions and recognise knowledge components and development in their play.
🧭 Wrapping It Up
Chunking is more than sorting — it helps children group knowledge into meaningful, labelled categories.
Think of chunking like creating mental “buckets” for different types of information.
Organised knowledge is easier to access than a jumbled collection of facts.
Chunking improves retrieval speed, supports efficient thinking, and makes learning more usable.
With clear mental categories, children can quickly find and apply what they need — no rummaging required.
📥 Download the Free Task Design Toolkit
Want to use these examples in your classroom or share them with your team?
I’ve created a downloadable Task Design Toolkit, including:
✅ 6 task examples in each pack
✅ Practical ideas for making each task active and embodied
✅ Extension and scaffolding suggestions for all learners
🚀 What’s Next?
In Part 4, we’ll move on to Ranking and Comparing tasks. From Venn diagrams to ranking grids, we’ll unpack how contrast fuels deeper thinking and helps children organise ideas through comparison.
📚 Sources & Inspiration
This post draws on the brilliant work of educators, researchers, and generous online communities. While the tasks and examples have been adapted and developed for the primary classroom, many of the underlying ideas are grounded in the work of the following individuals and groups:
🧠 Books & Research
David Goodwin & Oliver Caviglioli – Organise Ideas: Thinking by Hand, Extending the Mind
🌐 Online Educators & Threads
James Fitzpatrick (@mrfitzhist) – for insightful history task design and questioning
Matt Lynch (@Mathew_Lynch44) - Recall and retrieval tasks and challenges
Karl McGrath (@MRMICT) – for ideas around task design and retrieval challenges
Oliver Caviglioli (@olicav) – for dual coding and visual explanation frameworks
💬 Communities
Primary Task Design Facebook Group (led by @MRMICT) — a highly active space where educators generously share practical task structures and thinking routines
📝 More from WAGOLL Teaching
5 Triggers to Boost Classroom Engagement: Harnessing Dopamine and Cortisol for Learning ➡️ Understanding how dopamine and cortisol influence classroom engagement
Retrieval Practice: 7 Activities That work in Primary ➡️ A handy list of retrieval activities for Primary children
In a bit,
Coops 😎