Geography

Summer 1 - 2022

Week 1

The children in Key Stage 1 this first week back have taken to their Geography like a ‘duck to water’, showing great knowledge and skills when exploring maps and our planet. The children used a range of media such as a catchy song, globes, Google Maps, atlases and even a jigsaw to find the 7 continents and 5 oceans of planet Earth. This knowledge will help their learning grow as their topic of ‘Amazing Africa’ gets underway!

Key Stage 2 wasted no time getting into their new topic of ‘South America’ where they used atlases to locate the countries of South America. The children looked in detail at Brazil, locating the capital cities and other large cities whilst labelling the countries which shared a border. Knowledge of the land mass of South America will certainly help when exploring biomes, eco-systems, and topographical features all in the coming weeks!

Week 2

This week in Key Stage 1, the children have extended their learning beyond oceans and continents to examine the countries of the continent Africa. Children used Google Maps to follow the teachers learning, locating the major countries within the continent and their importance. Their learning then culminated in a quiz to test their knowledge, and a study of the terrain of Africa and its environmental regions.

Upper Key Stage 2's Geography this week included an extension of week one’s task to incorporate the countries of South America, finding these with atlases and online mapping. Children then used an existing map of the continent to show the borders of said countries, highlighting where the largest areas of land mass lie. A second task within the children’s learning, was to find locations on a world map using latitude and longitude coordinates.   

Weeks 3 and 4

Key Stage 1 have been very busy in Geography these past two weeks. They used their first week to recap the oceans and continents of Earth with a very special song to help! This really impressed the teachers as every single child knew the seven at their fingertip! This week culminated with an exploration of the physical features of Kenya, their chosen country of study. They used Google Maps to find the capital Nairobi, Mount Kenya and Lake Turkana. Super mapping!

Upper Key Stage 2’s Geography this week included the use of atlases to locate the countries of South America. This recap helped the children then onto their main learning regarding time zones of the world and why they are so important to help us understand how far / behind areas of the world are and how this can affect seasonal weather and the Earths climate. They then put this good knowledge into practise to find the time zones of different areas of the world, including some tricky islands and cities!

Weeks 5 and 6

Key Stage 1 -  the children have been learning all about the people of Kenya, including the Maasai tribe. They focussed their studies on ‘human’ geography, including population and where groups of settlements are located around the country of Kenya. They culminated their learning this week by looking at how the Maasai people dress, their unique customs and their links to wildlife due to their residence near to many game parks of the African Great Lakes.

Upper Key Stage 2 - thechildren have completed an in-depth look into eco-systems of South America. The children again used different mapping techniques to explore where in relation to the cities of South America, are the seven different types of biome and how these affect the eco-system of a localised area. The children culminated their learning in the last week of term, exploring eco-systems by mind-mapping their related facts and knowledge studied.