Cross-Curricular Initiatives
Jane Whittle – Nottinghamshire
Primary Teacher
Initial Assessment of Ideas
• Asking children what
they think geography is
can be a way of
highlighting their prior
knowledge and
experience.
• It also gives an
opportunity to assess how
the National Curriculum
entitlement is being met
through the school
planning.
• Remember to say
geography!
Further
research
KS1
Doing a Splat Board KS2
• Splat Board = a paper format for
children to off load any ideas they have
on the specific subject. Use of the
word splat is to denote that it is not a
neat polished sentence based piece of
work - it is a space for children to
make a non-judgemental response with
their ideas.
Completed Splat Board
Geography in the Classroom
• The next four pictures show
evidence of ways in which
geography has been integrated
into my classroom
Edwalton Estates is a display of work on the language of
estate agents. Having worked on this the children went into
the school farm and wrote adverts for the animals thus
integrating with the environment explicitly.
Edwalton Estates
Quest
Myths
During our Literacy topic on Quest Myths, the
children spent time looking at story maps. In order
to support visual understanding, we drew different
objects out of a hat to become part of the story
setting. This brought about interesting discussion of
geographical knowledge such as where Volcanoes
are located.
The children lying down are
looking at part of a
geography climate trail
around the classroom.
Having posters and
questions on the ceiling
reminds children that
geography is everywhere!
The display encourages
children to form enquiry
questions using the 5W’s –
Who, What, Why, When,
How.
Climate Trail
Cross-Curricular work
The next two activities,
1. Mapping Spring in the Wood and
2. Mapping for School Linking
detail cross-curricular activities using
fieldwork.
Geography Club
Starting a geography club has allowed for
the subject to be the talk of the playground
and the group are extremely enthusiastic to
spread the word of geography positively
and make displays which represent that
enthusiasm.
Mapping Evidence of Spring
• Begins with a blank outline map
• Searching for evidence of Spring
• Individual interpretation using
keys
• Development of vocabulary
• Extension: What will the wood
be like in one month’s time?
The Exercise
• The children were given a simple base map
of the woods of the school. We then walked
around the wood looking for evidence of
spring whilst orientating our maps to mark
on this evidence. The maps were purely the
children’s own interpretations and therefore
gave children an opportunity to discuss their
reasons for their map design and what they
had found.
The Outcome
• Some children chose to draw what they
saw, others chose to use symbols and a key
and some chose a proportional
representation. To extend the activity we
will be going back around the wood with a
tracing overlay to demonstrate the growth
of spring since the original map.
Cross-Curricular Benefits
• The scientific vocabulary which
stemmed from this activity was
fascinating and fits well with the Science
objectives for Habitats and Plants work.
To develop the element of thinking skills
the extension question was asked in
order to develop children’s discussion
with the use of evidence from their
maps.
Cross Curricular Activities using field work 1
Cross Curricular Activities using field work 2
Mapping Project 2–
School Linking Activity
• The children then
• Begins with the use
create enquiry
of Journey Sticks to
questions relating to
make an affective
their map.
map of the school
• These are sent with the
locality.
maps for the school
linking classes to use –
answering questions,
observations, free play
• This mapping project is based on crosscurricular work with a link school and is
transferable to any country or location. It
begins with the use of journey sticks to create a
map – see www.geographyteachingtoday.org
for more details on journey sticks. Also
http://www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_C
onf06Whittle.ppt# 1
• The children then create enquiry questions to
go with their maps and these are sent to the link
school classes who use the questions and the
maps to explore the link school immediate
locality.
A Map from a Ugandan School
Cross-Curricular Aspects
• The mapping work can
be taken further
through Literacy and
the use of traditional
stories to make Journey
Sticks and Affective
Maps.
• Locational Vocabulary
– positioning.
• School Linking
Experience – the notion
of togetherness – a new
community for
learning.
Literacy Link
• Literacy Link: The project can extend beyond
mapping the locality to using traditional stories
from the link locality to create story maps. The
children could consider the path of the main
character and make a journey stick of what
they might find on the way. This can be
extended to make the map affective through
emoticons of how the character feels
throughout the story – promoting aspects of
inference and deduction.
Vocabulary
• Vocabulary: Using the maps is an ideal
way to fulfil the positioning
vocabulary required in Numeracy and
gives a realistic context for applying
new language.
Global Citizenship
• Global Citizenship: Through joint
projects, a new community of enquiry is
being established in which children can
begin to understand that they are
working towards the same goal. The
project has also shown the positive
responses of using children’s work as a
stimuli and the personal gratification
this brings.