As student teachers, authors Emily Clark, Laura Hornsby, Abigail Howard, and Kathryn Pople were aware of what the class had already covered on World War 2 (WW2). It was unclear to them, however, what knowledge the children actually had acquired from the lessons. In this article these student teachers describe their use of concept mapping as they developed a sequence of lessons to explore WW2, food, and nutrition. Besides having a thoroughly enjoyable time, the student teachers learned several useful things that will help influence and improve their own future practice. For example, using children's ideas to influence thinking and lesson planning gives them ownership over their work, and is motivational and stimulating. The authors write that they noticed the quality of work produced by the students appeared to be better for having made use of that particular technique. From a trainee teacher's point of view, developing subject knowledge can be a daunting and tedious task, however, doing it with the help of children made a refreshing and inspiring change. The student teachers discovered that the children often highlighted questions that they had not thought about, for example where should eggs be placed within the nutrition exercise--dairy or protein?