Lesson video

Hello, my name is Ms. Chorekdjian.

I'm so excited to be learning with you today.

I will be guiding you through our lesson.

We're going to have a great time learning together today.

Let's start our learning.

Welcome to today's lesson from our Unit on Local to Global, how can we identify special places? This lesson is called, "Describing and locating our favourite places." Today you'll be learning to draw a picture or show a photograph of your favourite place and talk about why it is special.

Some of the learning is brand new, but I am here to help you.

This links back to previous learning that you might have done exploring your school grounds and your local area.

You might have also done a little bit of field work and drawing maps or making models as well.

You would've also talked about some of your favourite places around your school grounds.

I'm really excited to get started.

I hope you are too.

Here are the keywords that we'll be using together in today's lesson.

We'll be learning more about them later.

But first, let's practise saying them doing my turn, your turn.

Special place, special place.

Map, map.

Globe, globe.

Well done, everyone.

We will be learning more about these keywords later.

Here are the learning cycles that we'll be working through together in today's lesson.

First, we'll look at our favourite places and then we'll be learning about sharing information about our favourite places.

Are you ready to start your learning journey today? Fantastic.

Let's begin.

We've been learning about special places.

Special places could be places that you go on holiday, that are important historical sites, like this one.

This is Machu Picchu in Peru.

A special place might also be somewhere that you go with your family.

So it might be a beach or a theme park, or a special restaurant.

Or a special place could also be a place of worship.

What makes a place special? Think about all of the learning that you've done on special places so far.

Pause the video now and answer that question.

Good job, everyone.

How did you get on? Did you talk about special places including a place of safety and security? So that could be a place like your home or your school.

Special places could also include the home of a family member or a loved one.

So for example, your grandparents' house, your aunt or uncle's house, or the home of a family friend or a special school friend.

A special place could also be a place that you go to with your family.

So for example, a place of worship or a sports club.

It could also be a place that you go to as a treat, so a theme park, a restaurant or a holiday.

It might be somewhere that you celebrate someone's birthday or a wedding, or anniversary, something like that.

A special place could be a place that's special to one of your loved ones.

So somewhere that you might not have been to yourself, but you know that it's a special place.

It could be a city or a country that your parents or your grandparents were born in, or somewhere that your friends might have been born.

A special place could also include a place that is special historically or geographically.

So places like museums, art galleries, landscapes or sculptures.

These are all special places and I'm sure you were really good at remembering the different types of special places.

Special places can also be your favourite places.

Your favourite place can be local, so that means somewhere that's nearby to where you live or it could be a bit further away as well.

Your most favourite place is the best place that you've ever visited.

You could have visited this place only once or more than once.

It could be a place that you go to quite regularly and that's okay, it can be your favourite and your best place ever as well.

Your best place can even be in another country.

It could be somewhere where you visited only once and it was so special and you had the best time there that it's your favourite place.

Like we've said previously, it could also be a place where you go to with your family, somewhere where you go quite regularly like your local park or your place of worship.

Those places can be your best places and your favourite place ever.

It could be somewhere that you go on holiday or the country that your family originates from.

So special places can be a range of places and can mean different things to different people.

So for an example, I want to share with you my best places ever.

My best places ever include London.

This is the place that I was born.

Greece, which is the place where my family were born.

And Rome, which is the place that I visited on my last holiday.

So all of these places are my best places ever and their best places ever for different reasons.

So you can see there that London is a place that I'm in all the time because that's where I was born and where I live.

Greece is a place where we go to as a family quite regularly and very often.

And then Rome, I've only been to once because it was the destination of my last holiday.

So you can see there that all of these places are special to me and it doesn't matter how often I've been there.

Where are your best places or your best place ever? Do this as a think, pair and share activity.

Starting off with your partner and then widening it so that you're having a whole class discussion.

Pause the video and answer that question.

How did you get on? Did you talk about all of your best places or your best place ever? Did you talk about places that are where you are from in the UK? Or they could be places where your family are from? Or it could be places that you've gone to on holiday? They could also be places that you go to quite regularly, like places of worship or your loved one's homes? Or it could be places that you go to for a treat, like a theme park or a restaurant.

Good job, everyone.

I'm sure you had a really interesting discussion there about your favourite places.

Well done, I'm going to give you a thumbs up.

Fantastic.

Our favourite or best place ever can also be a special place.

Here's a picture of the beach that I like going to in Greece.

There's also an area of historical importance.

So it's a special place because it's historically a special place and there's lots of examples of ancient Greek architecture there as well.

Geographical vocabulary can help us talk about why a place is special.

So for example, if I use geographical vocabulary to talk about why Athens and Greece is special to me, I might say something like, "Greece is my best place ever because it's where my family are from, it's warm and hot and has really beautiful scenery and beaches.

There is also a lot of history there." So you can see that I've talked about the weather, I've talked about the history, I've talked about the human features there.

So things that are from the ancient Greek empire and I've also talked about why it's special to me because of my family connection.

So I've used geographical vocabulary to talk about why this is one of my special places.

Let's have a quick check here.

Geographical vocabulary helps us talk about why a place is.

A, ordinary.

B, normal.

C, special.

Or D, boring.

Pause the video now and complete this check.

How did you get on? Did you say C, special? Good job.

That's right.

Geographical vocabulary helps us talk about why a place is special.

Well done, everyone.

Give yourselves another thumbs up.

Let's carry on with our learning for today.

Special places like your favourite place or your best place ever might also have special activities that you can do there, such as going swimming in a swimming pool or in the sea, visiting an amusement park or theme park, visiting a museum, art gallery or zoo.

Visiting historical sites like a Roman ruin or in my example, some ancient Greek ruins.

Visiting areas of natural beauty and taking part in extreme sports like hiking, abseiling or skiing.

So you can see that there are a variety of different activities that you could do in your special places.

Geographers make connections between what are places like and the activities that are possible there.

So if we look back at my example of Greece again, you can see that some of the activities that I might do in Greece are, visiting a beach or a swimming pool, so there's a photograph of my favourite beach.

Visiting a water theme park, so because it's a country that's quite hot, they like having theme parks that are linked to water to help you to cool down.

And then I can also go hiking or exploring, and visiting areas of natural beauty, or visiting museums and historical sites because there's quite a lot of ancient Greek culture there and sites that are important historically.

So all of those things are activities that I could do in Greece, which is one of my special places.

Think about a special place of yours.

It could be something that you talked about earlier or it could be a new special place that you've thought of after all the discussions that we've had.

Is this place your favourite place? Is it your best place ever? Does this special place have any special activities there? Like going swimming, going on walks with a loved one, maybe going to theme parks or going to a museum or art gallery.

Pause a video now and discuss each of these questions about your special place with your partner, so that your partner also shares their answers with you.

Pause the video now.

Great, how did you get on? Did you talk about your special place? Did you talk about it being your favourite place and your best place ever? And then did you talk about any special activities that you could do there? Fantastic.

Good job.

Well done, everyone.

Give yourselves another thumbs up.

It's now time for your first task.

What I would like you to do is to talk to your partner about what your favourite special place or best place is and why? Tell them where it is and tell them what activities can be done there.

So think about all of the discussion and learning that we've done so far together today.

Pause the video now and complete Task A.

Good job, everyone.

How did you get on with that task? I bet you really enjoyed talking about your best place ever and going through some really fun and loving memories that you have of that special place.

I bet you it was also really good to talk about the activities that you can do there.

And you might have shared a funny story or two as well.

Here's what I had to say.

Here's my example of Task A "Athens in Greece is my favourite place ever because it's where my family are from.

We visit it every year.

It's warm and sunny and has really beautiful scenery and beaches.

There is also a lot of history there, you can visit so many historical sites.

You can also do activities like going swimming at the beach, visiting museums and walking around areas of natural beauty." So you can see there that I've used lots of geographical vocabulary to talk about my special place.

Well done to you as well.

I'm sure you did that too.

Good job, everyone.

You can give yourselves another thumbs up.

Let's continue with our learning.

Now that we've talked about our favourite places, we are going to share information about our favourite places.

What I would like you to do is to share your partner's favourite special place or best place with the class.

You can do that as an activity one at a time or you can even do that as a circle time activity.

Think about how you can share that information.

Pause the video now.

How did you get on? I bet you heard lots of really exciting things about everyone's special places.

I'm sure you had lots of different information as well, and there might have been a bit too much information, which makes it quite difficult for you to remember what information you learned about a particular place.

I wonder if there's a better way of sharing information about special places? What do you think? Pause the video and talk to your partner.

How could we share information about special places to make sure that we keep all of that information about one place together so that we don't get muddled up and we make sure that we have the right information? Pause the video and answer that question.

What did you say? Is there a better way of sharing information about special places? Maybe you talked about making drawings or maps or even displays.

Geographers share information about places all the time.

And this is what we are going to be doing as a class today.

We can learn more about each other's special places by creating a display.

So well done if that's what you said.

Our display will include drawings or pictures, and facts and information about the special places and some activities that can be done there.

And again, that's sharing information about everyone's special places so that we can all learn from each other.

We can use a map or a globe to locate where our special places are.

Maps and globes might also give us extra information about our special places as well.

I can locate Greece and then Athens on the map.

So there you can see that I've located Greece, it's got a circle around it.

And then you can see that I've also located Athens, so that's a zoomed in version of the map.

There's Athens.

Both of these maps can give me different information about my favourite country or my favourite place.

I can use the information from the maps to find out more about Greece.

So here's the map that I first looked at.

This map tells me that Greece is in the continent of Europe and is bordered to the south by the Mediterranean Sea, and it's also bordered by several countries as well.

This map tells me that Greece is bordered by Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey.

So you can see that all of those countries in green border, Greece, which is in yellow.

And that map has helped me find out that information.

So if I use the information that I find out from the maps and then my own information, which I shared with my partner in Task A from my own personal experiences, that builds up a picture of what Greece is like as a place.

So I use information from maps, globes, or you could use atlases as well and information from my own experiences to share information about a place and why that place is special to me.

It's now time for a true or false check.

So that means you've got to think really carefully about this statement and whether it's true or not.

All countries can be located on maps or globes.

Is that true or false? Pause the video now and answer that question.

How did you get on? Did you say true? That's correct.

All countries can be located on maps or globes.

So let's think about justifying our answer now.

So is our answer true because maps, globes and atlases help us locate places and gives us more information about them.

Or B, you can only find continents on maps or globes.

Pause the video now and justify that answer.

How did you get on? Did you say A, that's correct.

Maps, globes and atlases help us locate places and they give us more information about them.

Good job, everyone.

You can give yourselves another thumbs up.

You've worked really hard so far in today's lesson.

It's now time for Task B.

So what I would like you to do is to draw a picture of your favourite special place or best place.

I'd like you to locate where it is on a map, globe or an atlas.

And then I'd like you to write information about it, like activities that can be done there and any facts or information about it.

Pause the video now and complete that task.

Well, geographers, how did you get on? Here's an example of my Task B.

So you can see there that I've used a map to locate Greece in the continent of Europe.

And then I've also located Athens, which is the capital city of Greece.

I've drawn a picture of my favourite place, so you can see there that that's one of the historical sites that's in Athens, which is the Parthenon.

I've drawn a lovely blue sky and the sun to show you that it's a hot and warm country.

And then I've written some sentences about that special place based on the information that I found out from the map and also my own personal experiences of going there.

So I've said, "My favourite special place is Athens in Greece.

Greece is located in Europe.

It is bordered by four countries: North Macedonia and Bulgaria in the north, Albania in the northwest and Turkey to the east.

There is also a lot of history there, there are many historical sites linked to the ancient Greek civilization.

You visit them and can do other activities like going swimming at the beach, snorkelling in the sea, visiting museums and exploring areas of natural beauty.

Greece is a hot and sunny place." So all of that information tells you about my special place and we can use that to make a big class display of everyone's special places so that we can all find out information about each other's favourite or best place ever.

Well done, everyone.

I'm sure you were able to talk about what makes places special to you and your favourite or best place ever.

You were really good at explaining why that place is special.

Well done, everyone.

We've now come to the end of our lesson.

It's now time to go through a quick summary of all the learning that we've completed together today.

Geographical vocabulary helps us talk about why places are special to us.

A favourite place visited may be nearby or far away, or even in another country.

Geographers make connections between what a place is like and the activities that are possible there.

Special places can be located using maps and globes or atlases.

Well done, everyone.

You've been fantastic today.

You can give yourselves one last thumbs up.

Well done for joining me today and sharing your learning with me.

See you next time for more geography lessons soon.

Goodbye.