Teaching Geography Through Play: Workshop 17

Teaching Geography through Play: Workshop 17

Jane Whittle: or

Warm up games

Back on back: working in pairs, one child turns their back on the other child. That child must use their finger to draw on their partner’s back. They may draw a geographical feature, they may spell out where they are from? Where they went on holiday? The possibilities are endless for encouraging discussion and developing questions. Once both children have tried the game…swap partners!

GEOGS: just as in PE we use jogging to warm up; in geography lessons we use Geogs. These can take the form of many types of warm up games; however the most effective starters may involve an inflatable globe. You can download many ideas for using an inflatable globe at: http://www.geography.org.uk/download/GA_EYPInflatableGlobes.pdf

The 3C’s Game: The teacher throws the globe to a pupil who looks at where one of their thumbs is. As they look they must name the continent one of their thumbs is on. The pupil then throws the globe to another child who names a country in that continent, using the globe to help if necessary. Finally that child throws the globe to another student who names a city in that country. Support from peers surrounding the pupils will encourage motivation, this is not a competitive game, rather a game to promote locational understanding. If a child says a country or a city that is new to the class, the next Geogs game could be to find out information about that place using an atlas or Google Earth/Maps.

Vocabulary Games

Welcome Celebrity Feature: Choose a child to leave the room and explain to the class that they are an extremely famous feature from the geography dictionary. The children’s job is to explain to the celebrity facts and information about their feature to help them guess who they are. This game can be made more engaging by dividing the class into two teams or dressing the celebrity up with glasses and a cape perhaps!

Geographical Taboo: Just as the traditional game however using geographical vocabulary only. This is a wonderful game for a summative assessment as it gives an opportunity to observe children’s understanding and use of vocabulary in context. The taboo card has a geographical word at the top and forbidden words underneath – words that cannot be used to describe the word. Working in teams children must explain the word to one of their team members without using the forbidden words written on the card. This will create a fun way of rehearsing important vocabulary.

Let’s spell it post-its: Divide the class into groups of 4 and stick post-its onto their bodies. Each post-it must have a letter of the alphabet written on it. The post-its could be stuck on the children’s noses, hair, arm, knee…..How to play: the teacher shouts out a word the children have been focusing on in geography lessons. Using the post-its on their bodies, the children must spell the word in the correct order….this may involve acrobatics depending on where the word is stuck!

Sparkle: form a circle in the class and explain this is an elimination game. Give the class a word to spell, for example river. The children go around the circle spelling the word r-i-v-e-r; the following person shakes their hands in the air saying sparkle meaning the following child is eliminated. The game continues until only one child is left standing. This is a useful way of rehearsing spelling in an oral way.

Energy Games

Play Mat games/Twister style: Depending on the age of your class, the play mat could be of the local area, the UK or the world. Either create this using cardboard (supermarkets are usually willing to give materials) or buy a produced resource. Explain to the children this is a race but that the game will help them to think about where places are located. Divide the class into teams and select children from each team. Next shout two fingers on…… (Depending on the scale of your play mat this may be two fingers on the High Street or Africa for example) the first team to do this correctly wins a point. Physical challenge could be introduced depending on the size of your mat for example select 4 children from each team and shout…two feet on Australia. Transferring locational knowledge from a map to a play mat is an interesting concept to observe children working out.

Come fly with me: Either mark out a world map using hoops and labels for each continent or draw a world map on the classroom floor or outside using chalk. Ask children to stand in a continent. Next, throw an inflatable globe in the air and shout out the country where one of your thumbs is touching. Ask for volunteers to name the continent that country is in. Any child standing in that continent is eliminated from the game, but children can help by throwing the globe or naming continents. Children then move to a new continent or hedge their bets and stay where they are! The game continues until one child is left in the world! The name of the game is such because as children move from continent to continent they could sing “come fly with me, come fly lets fly away” or “sail away, sail away” making the necessary actions as they move.

Hunting games/trails: younger children need many opportunities to familiarise themselves with a place, particularly at the beginning of the year. To prepare for this set up a trail around the school where children must hunt for an object. This may be a familiar picture of a story or film character, a colour or a real object. As children find an object ask them to record it on a paper in their own way. As children move around the school support their enquiries about new places. Alternatively make a simple map of a place and ask children to follow the route to hunt for the objects.

Dinosaur Mix-Up: for younger children, take the familiar toys children play with (in this case toy dinosaurs) and hide them in a small area. Make a map of this area using photographs to enhance children’s use of maps. Explain to the children that you hid the toys for a game but that the toys were very naughty and when your back was turned the toys all switched places. Show them the map you made and pretend to throw it away as now the toys are all in the wrong place! Ask children to help you by searching for where the toys are and marking them on the correct place on a blank map. Thank children for their help. Perhaps the following day the children’s maps could be used in a treasure hunt.

Co-ordinate Games:

Make a map of the playground and overlay this with squares labelled with co-ordinates for instance letters for the x-axis and numbers for the y-axis. Give children a coordinate to find on their map and then find the actual location in the playground. For instance 2B could be the bench. At each co-ordinate place a question or clue (depending on your objective) for children to solve. In this way children are using the map in a creative problem solving way and rehearsing the use of co-ordinates.

Thinking Skills Games

Odd one Out: As the name suggests, provide pupils with a collection of three things, these may be artefacts, photographs or words. Pupils work together to find a connection (something that is similar) between two of the things and then give an explanation for why the third thing is the odd one out. This activity promotes creativity but at the same time highlights children able to find similarities and differences based on geographical themes. Photos can be downloaded from: http://www.geography.org.uk/resources/adifferentview/imagesandactivities/

Picture/Map from memory: Divide the class into groups of between four and six and number the children 1-6. Give children a blank paper with the title, I can memorise the features of a picture/map. At the front of the class display a map or picture of something you want the children to memorise. Remember learning is like gum! Grab it! Use it! Memorise it! Call up number ones from each group and give them 30 seconds (depending on ability) to study the map/picture. Children then return to their group and draw on what they remember. The game continues until all groups are satisfied they have the correct replica. This game is a useful way of memorising local areas/the water cycle or capital cities on a world map for example.

Trash or Treasure: This activity is suitable for any age range and requires two pieces of equipment: a special bag or box to keep treasure inside and a plastic bin or box for the rubbish/trash. Provide pupils with simple statements depending on the age range you have in your class. Some of these statements will be true and others false. Children must read the statement (depending on their age) and discuss in small groups if the statement is true or false. Once a decision has been made (this may take some debating) the children place the statement in either the treasure bag for true statements or the bin for false statements. Once all statements have been categorized, pull them out and discuss the reasoning for children’s decisions. The work can then be displayed and referred to. This is a useful activity for both pre and summative assessment.

Complete the Picture: depending on your locality study, give children a picture of a place but only half of the picture. You may choose to crop one side of the picture, or the top or bottom. Challenge children to draw the missing section as a pre assessment or as a summative task, to assess children’s understanding.

Save the last word for Me: ask children to bring in an object from home that explains about something important to them…the focus could be a holiday memory, a clue to the child’s identity; a fun artefact…the scope is endless. Divide the class into groups of three and ask one child to show their object. That child remains silent while the other two children discuss why the child has brought in that object and what it could mean. Finally the child who brought in the artefact has the final words and explains to the group reflecting on the ideas of the other two children if necessary.

Interactive Whiteboard Games

Using the revealer tool: insert an image of a place and cover it using the revealer tool. Slide across the screen to reveal a part of the image. Ask where could this place be? What can you see? What might be behind the revealer screen? This gives lots of opportunity for exploratory talk.

Using the spotlight tool: using the same principles as above, but using the spotlight tool to zoom into specific features on the map.

Magic Square: how to make a magic square: before the lesson, insert a square shape on the screen and fill it with colour, for example red. Next type the name of a city on the board and underneath type the name of the country for that city. Colour the name of the city in the same colour as the square (in this case red) and the name of the country in the same screen background colour. When the children arrive introduce them to the magic square. Show how when the name of the city moves into the square it changes to something else! Because the name of the city is the same colour as the square only the country will show up. Repeat this and then ask children what is happening, using atlases or globes, locate these cities and countries.

Internet games: using these sites on your Interactive Whiteboard will keep children motivated and if you have an ActivSlate (Promethean) children can play from the carpet allowing all children to see the action.

Jigsaw games for UK, Europe and the world: http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/gamespages/jigsaw.html

Map Splat Europe: http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/gamespages/logic.html

Map Match Games: http://www.kidsgeo.com/geography-games/index.php

Jazzing it up!

Talking postcards: you can purchase talking postcards at: http://www.tts-group.co.uk/shops/tts/Products/PD1727028/Talk-Time-Postcards-A6-30-Second/ Record questions for the children to answer orally and attach these to your display. This will promote dialogue and encourage children to interact with the display.

Geography Assemblies: encourage your geography coordinator or pupils in fact to plan an assembly for geography. This may include any of the games described here to encourage a whole school excitement and curiosity for geography. There may even be opportunities for differentiated atlas games. Select pupils from different classes to race against each other to find specific places in an atlas making use of the index. This provides a whole school model of how an atlas works and maybe the winner could keep the atlas!

Human Flags: children have an innate curiosity for flags. Discussion about why countries have a flag is a useful way of raising global issues of identity. Children could be encouraged to find flags which tessellate, flags with specific colours or alternatively, give children a world atlas with flags produced. Name a country for children to find using the atlas and next find the corresponding flag. Once the location is determined, in small groups children should try to replicate the flag, looking at its shape. They could do this with their bodies or perhaps with objects from around the classroom.

Jigsaw Places: Select four images (depending on the size of your class) and cut them into pieces like a jigsaw. Share out the pieces amongst the pupils. Challenge the pupils to look at their piece of jigsaw…what can they guess about where their place is? Next ask children to move around the room carefully looking for other children who have similar jigsaw pieces until the place is created. Depending on the objective for the lesson, children could explore their place – where could it be? What is it like? Alternatively, following the reading of picture books, children could have jigsaws of places in story books which they must then match to the page in the book. This gives an opportunity to ask: what was happening in this part of the story? Where is this place? It could also serve as a creative way to introduce a picture book.