Age range: KS2
Time: 30 minute lesson plus optional walk
Insiders’ Guide: My Hometown Map
Who better to describe a place than the people who live and go to school there? In this lesson, children choose key spots in the school neighbourhood and explain why they are so important. This map can be used to spark ideas for a longer piece of non-fiction describing a place. The walk is optional, but may help spark ideas.
Resources:
- Printout of ‘My Guide to’ worksheet [Worksheet: My Hometown Guide] and clipboards
- Map of the local area: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/ produce ones with clear detail
- Small dot stickers
- Pens or pencils
- Paper or exercise books
1) Explore your local area
Take your class on a short walk of the area local to your school. As you walk around, they can fill out the ‘My Guide to’ worksheet with interesting places they pass (or write on the back if they have ideas that don’t fit with the categories).
Or, skip the walk and go straight to step 2…
2) Locate yourselves
Back in the classroom, project a copy of the local area map on your whiteboard. Elicit from the children different local landmarks and where they are on it.
3) Personalise your map with key locations
Each of the children should have a printout of the map. They need to choose a few places that mean the most to them and mark them with small dot stickers.
Then, they can write a guide to the local area, taking each stickered place in turn, explaining why they are important to them.
