Year 2 have had an exciting start to their new Topic, ‘How could I get from A to B?’. They’ve been learning all about continents, countries, cities and oceans and locating them on maps. Alongside this, they’ve been learning all about map symbols, how to use an index in an atlas and how to use grid coordinates.
This week, we became Marvellous Mappers. The children in Year 2 first learnt about directions you would use with a map. They were challenged to move North, East, South and West around the classroom to really understand these and even made up their own little rhymes to help them remember the order. Some of our favourites were Never Eat Slimy Words and Naughty Elephants Squirt Water.
Then the children headed over to the Maker Space to show their understanding using the Beebots. Beebots are small robots that the children can programme with different directions. They listened to a short tutorial on how to use them and then they were off.
The children worked collaboratively to create a map on their table using lots of different map tiles. These included roads, parks, forests, houses and shops. They then challenged each other to move from one part of the map to another using their direction vocabulary. They had to keep in the amount of steps and the Beebot would move based on this. Once they reached their destination they swapped over. The children used their Step-by-Step skills to work out how best to move from one place to another. They were also wonderful at using their Check and Change skills if their Beebot went slightly off track.
They will continue their learning from here by creating their own maps and thinking about how we can travel from one place to another in a range of different vehicles.
The Year 2 teachers have been so impressed with how hard-working the Year 2 children have been since the beginning of this term and we are looking forward to lots more exciting work in the Maker Space soon!
By Emily Kingett
Year 2 Group Leader
Year 2 Elephants Teacher
