Year+3+Geography

Year 3 || =Weather=
 * GEOGRAPHY


 * Information ||

Objectives
• To be able to identify hot and cold places on a world map • To ask and respond to geographical questions • To recognise patterns • To use geographical vocabulary • To use ICT to access information about weather conditions around the world

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • be familiar with the meaning of ‘temperature’; • know how to use a thermometer to measure temperature; • have been introduced to a weather website that displays temperature information for a particular day; • if possible, have explored these pages at home or with the support of a teaching assistant.

Vocabulary
temperature, hot, cold, thermometer, equator, pole

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • Internet access to weather information sites (in this Example, []). Other websites you could use include: [] [] • data handling software (in this Example, //Data handling Interactive Teaching Program// (ITP)) • world maps or atlases and a globe • a maximum–minimum thermometer • copies of a sheet listing different locations, their latitude and continent (see Preparation for this lesson)

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • access and download information from the Internet; • use data handling software.

Preparation for this lesson
Bookmark weather websites. Prepare a worksheet with a list of places for which you want children to find and record maximum temperature information. Make sure that the information will be available from one of the three weather stations, or from another easily identified bookmarked source. The list should include places that children know of, or that are currently in the news, and places that have contrasting climatic conditions. Refer to the yearly teaching programmes in the //Framework for teaching mathematics from Reception to Year 6// to identify the aspects of data handling that can be drawn out in this lesson. This will help to make sure that the teaching and learning of mathematics and geography are mutually reinforcing. Before the lesson, set up the relevant software on the shared area of the network or on the computers that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display.


 * Lesson extract ||

Introduction
Revise the meaning of temperature in different conditions – the body, liquids, air. Establish how temperature is recorded. Remind the children about different types of thermometers, including digital thermometers. Demonstrate a maximum–minimum thermometer. Q Who can tell me where the coldest places on Earth are to be found? The warmest places? Use a globe and a light to show the relevance of the position of the Sun relative to the North and South Poles and the Equator.

Main activity
Organise the class to work in pairs or small groups at the computers. Give out the worksheet with the list of specific places for which you want the children to collect and record maximum temperature data. With the class, check where these places are on a globe. Show them how to use the bookmarked websites. Bring the whole class together. Using a data projector or an interactive whiteboard, open a data handling program, such as Microsoft Excel or //Data handling// ITP. Show the children how to construct a table with the list of places and the maximum temperature. Label the columns ‘Place’ and ‘Max. temp. °C’. Show the children how to produce a bar chart to compare the temperature. Ask: Q Which place(s) had the highest temperature? Q Which place(s) had the lowest temperature? Discuss whether it is easier to identify these places in a bar chart or in a table. Sort the table in order of the temperatures, greatest first. Look again at the graph. Q Which graph is more useful? Why? Then ask: Q Why are there differences between the temperatures in different places? Refer again to the globe or world map. Elicit the following reasons: • distance from the Equator; • proximity to seas or oceans; • proximity to mountains; • height above sea level. More able children may be able to identify an order of importance of the factors listed above.

Conclusion and follow-up
Q Would the temperatures be the same if we did this activity again in 3 months’ time, or 6 months’ time? What differences might occur? Why? Q Can you suggest other places on the world map that might be hot/cold and tell me why you think that?

Next steps
A follow-up to this lesson might include showing the children a video about weather, selecting from different regions of the world, such as the Mediterranean, the Arctic, Grenada and Death Valley. The children could compile guides to the different places using images and weather graphs, recommending what visitors should take to wear and what activities to do in each part of the year.


 * Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Geography Unit 7: Weather around the world

Subject links
Possible links could be made to language work or work in science.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • The Internet gives access to a much wider range of information and resource material than is offered by the traditional print resources in a school. • The use of the Internet helps teachers to extend their own knowledge and understanding about particular issues before teaching the children. • A simple data handling program with graphing facilities takes much of the tedium out of sorting and presenting information. Data can be saved and then added to for further interpretation. Graphs and charts of the same data can quickly be compared to decide which is the most useful for their purpose.

GEOGRAPHY Year 3 || =Indian village life=

Information ||

Objectives
• To use secondary sources • To identify physical and human features • To learn about similarities and differences between places

Prior learning
To benefit from this lesson, children should: • have put the village in context by looking at India on a globe, map and satellite image; • have used maps and some of the images, and be ready to look more closely at specific images.

Vocabulary
human feature, physical feature, hills, rivers, farming, houses

Resources
• data projector or interactive whiteboard linked to a laptop • ICT suite or set of laptops • images of a village in India from appropriate websites • word processing or desktop publishing software • software that includes a spotlight facility (in this Example, //SMART Notebook//), or presentation software that can be used to reveal an image bit by bit. The picture resource files (in this Example, China PowerPoint file and Hong Kong PowerPoint file) are not intended for use in the lesson, but show how presentation software may be used to reveal an image - the image was put on a slide and copied several times, each image was then partially covered with a block of solid colour with the blocks made smaller on each slide so that the image was revealed gradually.

ICT skills needed by teachers
To teach this unit, teachers need to know how to: • download images from the Internet; • import images into word processing or desktop publishing software; • use spotlight facility or be able to create slides in presentation software that allow an image to be gradually revealed.

Preparation for this lesson
Prepare a digital image of a village in India. Decide what interactive whiteboard feature you will use to reveal the image bit by bit. Some interactive whiteboards allow you to reveal as if pulling up a blind, but from right to left, left to right, top to bottom or bottom to top. For some images, the spotlight tool may be more appropriate, revealing a small circle of the image, and moving the revealed section over the image. Decide what are the main features that the children need to identify. Prepare some questions. Make digital images available in a location where the children can access them. Make them a suitable size for importing into word processing or desktop publishing software. Before the lesson, set up the relevant software on the shared area of the network or on the computers that the children are to use. Prepare the software on your own computer ready for display. Prepare a set of help cards, or prompts and diagrams, to help children to remember what to do when they are using the software.

Lesson extract ||

Main activity
Reveal the image of the Indian village bit by bit. Ask: Q What can you see so far? Q What is this building? Q What are these people doing? Q What do you think you will see next? Q Have you seen one of these in our local town/village? Encourage discussion of the image. Make notes of the types of things that the children comment on. These notes will help them in describing their own images. Remind the children how to load an image into a word processor or desktop publishing document. If possible, display a word bank of useful vocabulary. Organise the class to work at the computers in pairs or small groups. Ask the groups to select and load an image. They should then add a title. Underneath they are to write a couple of paragraphs about their image. Lastly, they should add their names and the date. When the work is complete, they should save it and print it out. These pages can be put together to make booklets about the village in India.

Next steps
As a technique, revealing images bit by bit to promote discussion lends itself to work on themes such as rivers, coasts and weather. Presentation software can also used to display the pictures. A picture could be gradually revealed on a series of slides, as in the example files.

Notes ||

Links to QCA schemes of work
The lesson links to: QCA Geography Unit 10: A village in India Section 3: What is the landscape of Chembakolli like? Section 4: What are the homes of the children in Chembakolli like? Section 5: What is the school in Chembakolli like?

Subject links
Links could be made to work in art and design and to reading and writing activities in the literacy hour.

Why use ICT?
The advantages of using ICT are as follows. • The Internet gives access to a much wider range of information and resource material than is offered by the traditional print resources in a school. • ICT allows teachers to project enlarged visual images for whole-class demonstration and discussion. • ICT allows children to draft and present written and pictorial information in an attractive format. Their work can be saved, and refined or added to later.