The need to transform school learning is now widely recognized, especially in relation to changes in the social forms and environments that surround children. In this paper, I clarify the peculiarities of traditional school learning and suggest a transformation to theme inquiry learning as new learning activity strategies in schools. In this paper, I want to mention two main peculiarities in school learning. First, school learning concentrates on the memorizing and reproduction of a text in a closed space. Knowledge acquired in such a way is inapplicable outside a school environment. Second, the object of learning at school is completely irrelevant to a student's motives and the real world, because the object of school learning is decided without the learner's involvement. In theme inquiry learning, the subject is determined by the student's motive and their previous experience. That is to say, while the school learning process progresses along a linear path decided beforehand, theme inquiry learning is flexible processes that may change alongside new questions and the student's own motives, which become clear as the learning activities advance. However, transforming from school learning to this type of learning poses some difficult problems, mainly because there is a firm structure which continues to reproduce and support existing school learning. Some examples of this structure include the rigid form of communication between a teacher and children in the classroom and the time structure, which is typically a fixed timetable. This paper aims to introduce the practice of theme inquiry learning at the F elementary school, Ibaraki-shi, Osaka, and to describe and analyze the process. The description and analysis of this practice will be based on action research methodologies. Action research in educational practice can be characterized as a methodology that aims to capture the context of the nature of relation between a teacher and a child and their interaction in a school. It also examines the ways in which a teacher and a researcher tend to collaboratively tackle problems, based on reflections on educational research, which investigates rationality and objectivity and neglects concrete contexts. Based on the above methodology, I will analyze the practices of theme inquiry learning in the year 2004-2005. Furthermore, from these analyses, I will draw on viewpoints about the value of theme inquiry learning and about the transformation of the teacher's role.