Geography: Blog items
Date: 18th Sep 2021 @ 8:10am
Today we began our Geography lesson by recapping the four countries in the United Kingdom and their capital cities. We again looked at a UK map and located each country. We then began to identify features of three different locations, Blackpool, Grange Park and London. We looked at a number of photos from each of these places and discussed the similarities and differences. The children understood that Blackpool is on the coast and near to the beach. They were also able to identify that London is a city with tall buildings, a long river and old buildings such as Big Ben.
Date: 13th Sep 2021 @ 12:22pm
This half-term in Cedar, we are going to be eco warriors!
We started our topic by investigating Miss T's rubbish into what is recyclable or non-recylable. We discussed each item and how some parts of the items weren't and some were so we would have to separate them.
We learned about how must plasic there is in the oceans and seas and what we can do to help. We then used some of Miss T's rubbish to junk model our own sea creatures.
Date: 10th Sep 2021 @ 11:17am
Year 5 took to the water designing and creating their own rivers! They began by working in groups to decide how to create an accurate river that would eventually hold water. Using a range of materials they had to use their own thoughts, ideas and imagination to construct their river - some even added trees and boulders for extra realism! Ultimately, all groups took to the outside learning area where Mr. Taylor would 'test the flow' and pour water to down their creations to see if they held water! This launched our Geography topic of rivers as the children then came inside to look at some real rivers, begin to discuss their features and record their own questions that they would like to answer during the half-term.
Creating coastal erosion clay figures
Date: 9th Jul 2021 @ 9:09am
Yesterday in Art, year 4 created the stages of coastal erosion using clay. The children used the skills they have learnt over the past few weeks to create different texture in their clay using their hands and cocktail sticks.
Date: 30th Jun 2021 @ 8:15pm
This week we have started looking at Non-Chronological reports in Reading into Writing. We have been reading a variety of texts to highlight the features so that we can analyse what we need to include in our own success criteria. We have read about lots of interesting facts - we now know that they need to be factual and give information. Our Reports will be about our Geography topic Mountains and Volcanoes so we have been doing lots of reading and learning about different mountains around the world too so we have a great background knowledge for when we draft our reports.
Creating texture with play dough!
Date: 25th Jun 2021 @ 5:07pm
Today in Art, year four explored two of the seven elements of art which were texture and form. They used the play dough to make different forms and create various textures. We also linked this to geography by creating headlands and bays using the play dough which are created through erosion.
Now Press Play - The Water Cycle
Date: 17th Jun 2021 @ 7:53am
Today we went on an adventure in Ethipoia using the Now Press Play Headsets. We learned about the Water Cycle and how a water droplet from a lake or the sea evaporates to become water Vapour, which condenses to form heavy clouds and then precipitates to form rain on mountains/hills so that the water can rejoin the streams and rivers. It was a great adventure where we had to save the village from being in drought because a mean farmer had made a damn. We listened and acted out the story well!
Date: 8th Jun 2021 @ 4:31pm
For Geography this half term we are learning about Mountains and Volcanoes around the world! To start off our topic we had a minature volcanic eruption on the playground and thought about how difficult it might be to live near an active volcano! We then started learning about mountain ranges around the world including the Alps, Rockies, Andes and Himalayas and located them on Google Earth.
Date: 10th May 2021 @ 4:28pm
In Geography, we continued our learning on Australia. We learnt about natural and manmade landmarks. We started by finding some famous landmarks on a map of the UK and then went on to compare these to Australian landmarks.
In groups, we were given a wallet of jigsaw pieces. We had to piece these together to make 5 famous Australia landmarks. We then had names and facts to try to match up to our landmarks. Finally we located these famous attractions on a map of Australia! We just wish we could have visited these amazing places in real life!
Date: 26th Apr 2021 @ 10:09am
In music we started to look at aboriginal music. We linked this to our geography topic and decided to focus on Australian music. We listened to and appraised a variety of Australian Aboriginal music and we found it extremely interesting. We realised that to make music they used natural resources and their voices. We went outside and used resources that we could find in our playground, wooden instruments and also our bodies to compose our own piece of music.
A journey through the Americas
Date: 14th Apr 2021 @ 8:02pm
We began our new Geography topic - A journey through the Americas - with a quiz. We tested our general knowledge, working in teams. We then went on to use atlases and online maps to locate cities and physical geography features in North and South America.
Date: 1st Apr 2021 @ 7:07pm
Today in Geography we used atlases to firstly locate the 7 continents of the world, and then the 5 oceans. We enjoyed using the atlases and we are becoming very good at locating the continents on the world map! We also enjoyed listening to our continents song before labelling the oceans on our individual maps, and taking part in a short oceans quiz!
“Oceans are salt water.”
“The Pacific Ocean is the biggest ocean in the world!”
“Lots of animals live in the ocean.”
“Pacific means peaceful.”
Date: 20th Mar 2021 @ 12:33pm
Today we entered our classroom after lunch with a passport and an aeroplane ticket. Our classroom had been transformed to look like an aeroplane! We took our seats, put our hand luggage under our seats, fastened our seatbelts and watched a safety video. The plane took off and we were in the air! How would this feel is it was real? We watched a video that someone had recorded whilst on an aeroplane above the clouds to help us deepen our thinking and understanding. We enjoyed our in flight snack and relaxed on our flight!
Once we landed we walked off the plane and around the airport to collect our luggage. We then headed to our hotel in Madrid. It was much warmer in Madrid that the UK! We then thought about what we would do once we were in our hotel. We thought we might unpack, go swimming, have a nap or get something to eat! We discussed some of the activities you might do on holiday, before heading back to our hotel and finishing our role
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 5:26pm
Year 4 have had a wonderful WOW afternoon in Geography. The children tasted lots of wonderful food from around the world such as: Mango, brioche, pizza, prawn crackers, dark chocolate and other exciting foods. We discussed where the food was from and spoke about trade and the differing weather conditions which enables certain food to be grown in a specific country.
Date: 12th Jan 2021 @ 3:04pm
Today in Cedar, we have continued our learning around maps and aerial photographs.
We used an aerial photograph of our school to find features around our school. We found some of the marking on the KS2 playground, the carpark, roundabout, forest school and the MUGA.
Date: 28th Sep 2020 @ 7:48am
This half term, our Geography is based on rivers.We have been looking at river features and how rivers change as they flow towards the ocean. This week we used atlases and online maps to locate famous British rivers. We then looked for the features we have learned about on OS maps. We discussed how effective the OS map is at representing the features compared with an aerial photograph.
Date: 19th Sep 2020 @ 12:07pm
We have had another busy week in Year One! This week we have made the most of the lovely weather and taken lots of our learning in to our outdoors area!
We began the week by looking at using the words greater than, less than and equal to explore and explain the amounts of different groups of objects. We took part in lots of practical activities to explore what these words meant and how we could represent these words. We then moved on to learning the symbols < > and =. We worked on accurately counting groups of objects and inserting the correct symbol between each group.
We have continued to look at the local area we live in and began to look at human (man made) and physical features (natural). The children took part in a sorting activity to group features into either human or physical, and then record their learning independently on Seesaw. We are continuing to learn how to use Seesaw independently, children take photos of their practical learning, and record their thoughts and explanations. Don't forget to complete this weeks BLT on Seesaw!
Date: 11th Sep 2020 @ 7:09pm
This week in Year One we have been focussing on grouping and sorting a number of objects in different ways. We have explored sorting by different properties, such as colour, size, and shape. We have explored lots of practical sorting activities, and have enjoyed some time in our outdoor areas, making the most of the dry weather! We have also worked on accurately counting the objects we have sorted, and exploring which group has the most, which has the least, and if any are equal.
This week we have also started looking at and learning about the area we live in, identifying key sights and features of local and national locations. We talked about where we live, and looked on maps to identify the location of both Blackpool and the UK! In groups we then looked at a variety of different pictures and decided wether the pictures were photographs of features of Grange Park, Blackpool or London.
We have had another very busy and productive week! We are very proud of how all the Year One children have settled back into school life.
Date: 12th Mar 2020 @ 8:34am
Year 4 children have been learning about physical and human features of the coast. They have compared different coastal areas around our country. The children have also been learning about coastal erosion and how it creates stacks, caves and arches.
Date: 5th Mar 2020 @ 7:49pm
When Year 4 returned to school they found out that their new subject was going to be called ' Oh I do like to be by the seaside'. This topic has a focus on Geography, Science and D&T. The children created ocean themed water colour washes onto their paper. They created different tones and shade to show light passing through the water. Once they were dry the children researched different ocean creatures and created silhouettes to add to their ocean landscapes. Children also started to investigate habitats and elements of living things.
Date: 23rd Jan 2020 @ 8:14am
Year 2 were given a variety of images of landmarks around Australia. The children had to piece the jigsaws together to identify the locations and find out new facts! These included The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Australia Zoo and Sydney Opera House. Year 2 then did a great job advertising the landmarks in their leaflets!
To the land down under! Australia here we come!
Date: 21st Jan 2020 @ 9:38pm
Year 2 were excited to fasten their seat belts ready for their jet setting adventure to Australia. Before we could go, we discussed all the important things we need when travelling aboard and what flying commercially is really like. Year 2 were lucky enough to have first class round the trip tickets to Sydney. Before our departure we ensured that we had the correct personal information on our passports and not to mention having our boarding passes ready for boarding. Next we boarded, with the help of our fabulous cabin crew (Miss Hartley and Mrs Crookall) who showed us to our seats. Then prepared for take off and took to the skies observing all the land, sea and clouds from 42,000 ft. We were kept entertained throughout our 22 hour flight with plenty of snacks and refreshments. Next stop SYDNEY!
Date: 10th Jan 2020 @ 1:49pm
This morning, we began our topic on Evolution with a lesson on understanding evolution in finches. We learned about Darwin and his travels on the HMS Beagle, which took him to the Galapagos Islands.Here, he studied the differences between finches on a range of different islands and came to the conclusion that different finches needed a different beak to eat the range of seeds/insects available on each island. To understand this, we took part in a task that required us to ‘be a bird’ and ‘eat’ seeds. We either had a fork, spoon, pair of tweezers or a peg and had to gather as many items off the desks as possible. There were 7 islands with 7 different ‘seeds’. These were: skittles, rice, pasta, marbles, counters, cubes and peas. We found that some items were easy to pick up with our ‘beaks’ and others were very tricky. This helped us to understand how different finches had evolved to survive on each island.
We also took part in an activity called 'Talking Telephones'. This involved sending a message around the circle by whispering it to the person next to us and seeing where changes in the message occurred. We then linked this to mutations with DNA through time, which helped us to understand how mutations lead to evolution.
Date: 17th Dec 2019 @ 2:21pm
This half term we have been looking at mountains and volcanoes in Geography. To link this to art, we decided to draw a volcano and paint/colour it in the style of Andy Warhol. We looked at a range of his pieces of art and discussed what was similar about them all. This included his strong lines and use of vibrant block colour. We were given the freedom to draw our volcano in any style we wanted, just so long as we used his strong lines and bold colours. We think our end products were great!
