Year 1 - Geography
Buildings and features near our school
Local area: where do we live?
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit investigates the area around school and home by identifying local features, exploring buildings, using simple maps, collecting data on how we travel to school, and describing familiar routes using basic geographical vocabulary.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to investigate the street outside your school and do some fieldwork to observe and record what is there.
Key Notes
- Many streets include a range of buildings, including homes, shops, places of worship, offices, etc.
- When doing fieldwork geographers use large-scale maps to locate their position and features they see.
- Geographers use maps, labels and photographs to share information about places they have investigated through fieldwork.
Vocabulary To Learn
- fieldwork: Fieldwork is investigating the outdoors using geographical tools and thinking to gather information or data.
- buildings: Buildings are structures made by people that have walls and a roof, such as homes, offices, schools, shops, places of worship.
- large-scale map: A large-scale map shows a small area on a map in a great amount of detail.
- recording sheet: A recording sheet is where you can note your findings from fieldwork, and can include a table, chart, etc.
- display: A display is a way of sharing your findings and can be written, drawn, spoken or be a mixture of all these methods.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- The features discussed in the slides are the only way they look in real life e.g. all houses/ shops/ leisure facilities all look the same (like the pictures in the slides).
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain this geography topic using two clear key points.
Many streets include a range of buildings, including homes, shops, places of worship, offices, etc. When doing fieldwork geographers use large-scale maps to locate their position and features they see.
2. Define this geography term and use it in an example. 'fieldwork'
Fieldwork is investigating the outdoors using geographical tools and thinking to gather information or data.
3. Correct this common geography misunderstanding.
Mistake: The features discussed in the slides are the only way they look in real life e.g. all houses/ shops/ leisure facilities all look the same (like the pictures in the slides). Correction: Houses, shops, green spaces, places of worship etc. are all unique. The features in your area might look the same as the examples or they might look different to the examples used. They are still a type of that feature.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 1 Geography guide library.