Our Local Area Y1

• Geography
• Primary Education

What can I see in my local area?

By the end of this session I will:

• Talk about the human features I can see in my local area
• Identify human features in my town

What are the human features in my local area?

By the end of this session I will be able to:

• Talk about the human features I can see in my local area

• Identify human features in my town

This session can be taught as a flipped learning activity prior to starting the 'local area' topic.

The children should be familiar with their local high street so this image should already spark some conversation within the classroom, if used as a taught session.

What can you see in our picture?

An initial warm up activity to gather ideas and to spark enthusiasm. This is a very familiar image to the children from our local area so should be really engaging. They will be able to see lots of familiar shops and other buildings, such as the local church.

How do you feel about our area?

😒🙁😐🙂😃

A quick emotional check in to start the lesson may enable the teacher to support any children who may be worrying.

Some children may have negative perceptions of some parts of the town so learning may need to be readjusted to support their wellbeing.

What can you see when you look out of your window?

This activity, if accessed from home, will provide a bank of contrasting images for discussion back at school.

In school, the opportunity for children to take pictures from different windows will offer meaningful examples of the different human features within their local area.

It may also bring up a few features that might warrant further discussion.

What did you see out of your window?

This activity will quickly give an assessment of where the children's prior knowledge sits and where to direct learning in future sessions.

If using in class, it may be helpful to offer a word/picture bank as a scaffold.

Human Geography Word Bank

city

town

village

shop

factory

church

road

office

town hall

This is an initial word bank to support the topic vocabulary. We will refer back to it and add to it through the block of lessons as children develop a deeper understanding of the concept.

We are Learning about Physical and Human Features in Geography

Let's watch a clip to find out what these words mean.

We are learning about the human geography in our local area.

Let's watch a short video clip to find out what this means.

www.bbc.co.uk

This clip expands on the subject knowledge and also mentions 'physical' geography, which will be discussed in a later taught session.

Human features are things like houses, roads and bridges. They have been built by people.

What is NOT a human feature in Geography?

The quick quiz enables a snapshot of understanding. Some of the vocabulary has been covered but some has not, so I have recorded my voice to support understanding.

Can you think of any other human features to add to our word bank?

What do these features have in common?

Some of the human features on this slide may not be found in our area. This enables wider discussion for those children who are keen to challenge themselves.

A block of flats

St Helen's Church

A car

The Market Hall

Children

Road

Human Feature

Not A Human Feature

Hood Park

Hood Park is a human feature. It was designed and built in 1929, although it has changed a lot since then.

The green spaces in our town are all human features, even though they have trees, grass and even flowers!

This is a 'green space' within our town. Before clicking the hotspot, it would be useful to elicit responses from the children about the park. Have they been there? What can they tell you about the park? Can they direct me to the park?

Is the Bath Grounds a human feature of our town?

Yes

No

Explain your answer

Can you find human features in our town?

😒🙁😐🙂😃

This is a  map of the town. At this point, it would be useful to zoom in and out to show how google maps puts our town within the much larger context of our county, country and continent.

Link to next steps in learning. In our next lesson, we will be looking at how maps can help us to find the human features in our local area.

In our next lesson, we will be looking at how we can use a map to help us to find the human features in our area.

Zoom in and out of the map on our final slide to see if you can spot human features.