Lesson video

Hi everyone, my name is Miss Dhillon and today we are starting a new geography unit, which will be looking to build our locational knowledge of North America.

In the lesson today, we will be exploring the question, what are North America's countries and physical features? Today this is what the structure of the lesson is going to look like.

We will start with the star words.

Then we will try to locate North America on a world map.

Then we will zoom in to look at different countries of North America.

Then we will study the environmental regions of North America and finally, we will finish with a task where we compare and contrast two North American regions.

First of all, please make sure you have all the equipment ready for today's lesson.

On the screen you can see the star words for today's lesson.

We have been practising them out loud using my turn and your turn, are you ready? North America, Mountainous West, Great Plain, Canadian Shield, Eastern Region, Caribbean, islet, topography.

Excellent job team.

So geography has two branches, physical geography and human geography.

Today we will be focusing on physical geography, which is the branch of geography dealing with the natural features and landscape of earth.

For example, mountains, lakes, cliffs, and beaches.

On this world map can you point to where you think North America is? Do that now for me.

Okay, so you should have pointed to where you think it is.

Did you point to this region here? Well done, if you did.

Today we will be learning all about North America, which is the third largest continent in the world.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

Here is the answer.

Did you remember that it's the third largest continent? Well done team.

Now let's zoom into the world map a little bit further into the continent of North America.

You can now start to see some of the countries in North America.

Now let's have a even closer look.

In total, North America has 23 officially recognised independent states.

Looking at the map can you point to the state which is the largest state in North America? Okay, so you should have done that by now.

Did you point to Canada? Well done if you did.

Canada is the largest state in North America.

Now looking at the map this time can you point to the ocean which surrounds North America in the north? So this time use the compass to help you, see where north is on the compass, which direction is it? Let me give you a clue.

And can you say the name of the ocean that surrounds North America in the north? Okay so looking at the map, hopefully you pointed to the Arctic Ocean.

So the Arctic Ocean surrounds the continent of North America in the north.

Well done if you've got that correct.

Now, looking closely at the map this time can you point to the ocean which surrounds North America, but in the east.

use your finger now to point to that ocean, remember you're looking at the east.

Okay, did you point to the North Atlantic Ocean? Well done if you did, the Atlantic Ocean is split into north and south.

So the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean surrounds the continent of North America.

Now looking at the map, which ocean surrounds North America in the west.

Remember to use a compass to help you.

Okay team, did you point to North Pacific Ocean? Awesome job team.

You've done really well interpreting the map, but also finding the oceans, which surround North America.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

Okay team, here's the answer.

So you should have said C because Indian Ocean is the only ocean that does not surround the North American continent.

Well done if you found that.

Let's have a look at the countries in North America.

Here, we have Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico.

Look at the map more closely.

Can you find these three countries on the map? Okay, so you should have pointed to them by now.

And did you find them correctly? Thumbs up if you did, well done.

Now it's time to play the memory game.

Looking at the map, which North American country is under the red box? Say the answer out loud.

Did you say Mexico? Well done if you did.

Well done for remembering that Mexico is south of the United States of America.

We are now going to zoom in to this part of North America.

On the screen you can see all the countries that are part of North America.

We are now going to practise saying them out loud using my turn and your turn.

On the screen you can see the other countries that make up North America.

We are now going to practise saying the names of these countries out loud, because some of them might be a little bit tricky for you to read.

Are you ready? We're going to start on the left hand side.

Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Bahamas, Dominican Republic.

Good job team you're doing really well so far.

Let's go onto the right hand side.

Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, St.

Lucia, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and finally Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Excellent job team.

So some of these you might already recognise, which is amazing.

And some of them you might be hearing for the first time.

So the more we'll look into them, hopefully the more countries from North America you will begin to recognise.

On the screen now you can see some pictures from a trip that I did last year and I visited Guatemala, which is the home to volcanoes and rainforests.

Here, you can see me visiting two different volcanoes in Guatemala.

In the middle photo you can see Mount Fuego, which is an active volcano and I got this picture at night when the lava I was coming out at the top of the volcano.

Pause the video now to complete this task.

I would like you to write down all the countries that you know are in the continent of North America.

Remember just try your best.

Even if you come up with five or 10, it doesn't matter.

You're trying to remember as many as you can, best of luck.

Okay team.

We're going to go through the answers but I have split up the answers into a few sections.

So I'm going to give you a few seconds to check the ones on the screen first, they go in alphabetical order.

So each slide is going to go through all the answers.

So here's the first list.

Check to see if you've got any of those.

Here's the next slide.

If you need to go back remember you can always go back or you can pause if you need a bit longer.

And here's the final slide.

Okay, well done on your efforts to try to remember as many countries in North America as possible.

I know you tried really hard to remember the missing countries.

However, remember you're only starting to recognise these so the more we look at them, the better you will become at naming countries in North America.

We are now going to learn about the five physical regions of North America.

These are the Mountainous West, the Great Plain, the Canadian Shield, the Eastern region, and the Caribbean.

Let's start with the Mountainous West.

Young mountains rise in the west and the most familiar of these mountains are probably the Rocky Mountains which are North America's largest chain.

These Rockies stretch from the province of British Columbia, Canada to the U.

S state of New Mexico.

Volcanic mountain ranges are also present in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur quite frequently in this region, which means it happens quite regularly.

Volcanic activity can destroy towns and cities because of the lava.

And it can also contribute to rich fertile soils in the region because the lava leaves behind these nutrients and this creates really fertile soil for agriculture.

The Great Plains is the second region in North America.

The great Plains lie in the middle of the continent.

Deep, rich soil blankets large areas of the plains in Canada and the United States of America.

Here, grain is grown in this region and that is why it is called the breadbasket of North America.

What is it called team? Good.

The breadbasket of North America.

And why is it called that? Good job, because here they grow lots of grain and they're able to do this because the soil is really rich and fertile.

In this region grasslands are the largest biome in North America.

What is the largest biome in North America? Good grasslands.

I would now like you to pause the video to complete the task on the screen.

Here are the answers.

Well done if you matched those up correctly, now we're going to look at the Eastern region of North America.

North America's older mountain ranges for example, the Appalachians, rise near the East coast of the United States of America and Canada.

These areas have been mined for rich deposits of coal and other minerals for hundreds of years.

What has been mined here? Good job, coal and other minerals.

Welland areas are a biome of this eastern region and consist of areas of land where the soil is saturated with moisture.

So it is either seasonal or is just permanently very moist.

The Florida Everglades is the largest wetland system in the United States of America.

Finally, we are now going to look at the Caribbean.

The Caribbean you might have heard of before, or someone has said it or mentioned it before.

And the reason is because a lot of people go to the Caribbean because of it's wonderful weather and beautiful islands.

The Caribbean region, which you can see on the map, take a few moments just to look at the Caribbean.

What countries can you see that are part of the Caribbean? Okay for example, Jamaica is part of the Caribbean.

Now the Caribbean region includes more than 700 islands and islets, so islets is one of our star words for today.

An islet is just a very small island.

What is an islet? Good job, a very small island.

So the Caribbean region has more than 700 islands and islets as well as reefs and cayes.

Cayes is a small island on the surface of a coral reef.

Can you remind me how many islands and islets and reefs does the Caribbean have? More than? Good job.

More than 700.

Now the regions islands and smaller islets are varied in their typography.

Typography is the physical features.

My turn, your turn.

Topography.

Good job.

So some islands have a relatively flat and sandy terrain, so they're flat and they're sandy, whereas other islands are quite rugged and mountainous or volcanic.

So that's why their topography, their physical features vary quite a lot in the Caribbean.

The coral reefs and caves of the Caribbean sea are amongst the most spectacular biomes in North America.

Pause the video now to complete the task on the screen.

Here are the answers.

Did you match them correctly team? Well done if you did.

Have a look closely at these two different regions of North America.

On the left is a great plain and on the right is the mountainous west.

We are going to compare and contrast these two regions.

Looking at the pictures what do you notice are the differences between them? Okay team.

So you might have said that these two regions have very different physical features.

For example, in the great plain we have loads of grasslands.

Whereas in the mountains west, we have mountains and volcanoes.

So that's quite a huge difference.

Also in the great plains, because there's lots of grasslands it is relatively flat.

On the other hand, the mountainous west which has mountains and volcanoes, it has a much higher elevation.

So you might have said these are some of the differences.

Now it's your turn to pause the video to complete this task.

How is the great plain different to the mountainous west in North America? So you are going to write a paragraph to compare the two.

You have some sentence stems to help you.

On one hand, the great plain has lots of.

It is also known as the.

So you might remember it's known as the breadbasket of North America because we grow lots of grains in that area.

On the other hand the mountainous West is.

These two regions are different because.

So I've given you some sentence stems to help you.

Pause the video now.

Use the pictures on the screen to help you and write in full sentences to answer this question.

Okay team, on the screen you can now see the answers.

This is just an example of what you might have written.

Pause the video to read through the model answer and check your own answer.

Okay team, that is now the end of today's lesson and I hope you had lots of fun learning about the continent of North America, some of the countries which are in North America, hopefully you can recognise a lot more than you did at the beginning of the lesson, and also learning about some of the environmental regions and the physical features of the continent.

Next lesson, we will be learning more about the human features of North America.

Bye everyone.

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