Estimated time required:
Section 1: Around 1 hour
Section 2: Minimum 10-15 minutes if only doing Activities 1 and 2 and reading activity 3. This unit should, however, also include the children making their own scale maps of the classroom, hall or playground.
Section 3: Around 1 hour
Section 4: More than an hour. If time is limited, children could be asked to skip one of the written activities.
Teaching methods
This unit of work is suitable for children working on computers in a computer room, for children working in pairs on a classroom computer for or whole-class work using a data-projector.
Types of activities involved
Activities which will be done on the computer include multiple-choice questions and matching activities.
Some activities are designed for discussion, and the pupil will be asked to talk to a friend about them.
Other activities must be written in the pupils' copybooks, such as answering open questions and drawing sketch-maps.
Class discussion can be used instead of some of the pair discussion and writing tasks if the teacher wishes.
Practical work in map-making is outlined in Section 2 (Mapping Skills).
Useful games
Showdown! Children have a small piece of paper on which they write their answer to a question, e.g. "What is the second-largest city in the Republic of Ireland?" When the teacher calls "Showdown!" they must reveal their answers and find out if they are right.
Buzz Groups Children have two minutes to discuss with a partner what is the right answer to a question.
Snowball Children think about a difficult question on their own, and then discuss it with a friend. Then the child and his/her friend discuss the idea with another pair. Then answers are collected from the whole class.
Battleships The traditional game of battleships is excellent for developing children's concept of grid referencing.
Time-trial Children have a short time to list as many examples of a topic as they can, e.g. list as many forms of transport as you can.
Pictionary with map symbols – who'll be the first to guess the feature?
Giving directions
Give the children a copy of a map and make sure they have a ruler.
Explain the scale of the map to them so that they can measure distances on it.
Tell them where to start and then give them directions using compass points and distances, e.g. walk 3 metres north. See who ends up in the right place!
A more difficult extension of this is to have the children making up the directions.