Rain and rivers on the web

This unit is about using web resources for activities on rain and rivers at key stage 1. It takes an enquiry approach, which can be adapted to your own circumstances and the needs of your children. You may find it helpful to look at Using the CPD units and the web before using the ideas on these pages.

The web provides a ready source of geographical photographs, line drawings, animated graphics and video extracts. However, links to other curriculum resources, for example stories, poems, music and other practical activities, both online and in print, are just as important with this age group.

While many websites on water and rivers (eg Water in Schools, Mobot and E4S are aimed at key stages 2 and 3, they can be used at key stage 1, especially with year 2 children who have moved beyond basic vocabulary.

This unit covers:

1. Using images and questions
2. Developing river vocabulary
3. Understanding how rivers begin: rain
4. Understanding how rivers begin: puddles
5. What makes a river?
6. Rivers in your locality
7. Other rivers
8. Cross-curricular and curriculum links

Using images and questions

To discover whether even the youngest children have been near a river or stream, use an image to begin a discussion.This one of the River Darent in Kent (reproduced with permission of John Robinson) could be enlarged and printed or displayed onscreen, on an interactive whiteboard or using a data projector.

Search engines are an easy way of locating images of particular features. Visit Google, click on the ‘Images’ tab and type in a word, for example ‘rain’ or the name of your local river. You should be presented with a selection of images.

Children can be encouraged to point out specific items (birds and animals make a good focus for discussion) to give information about river places they have visited and to ask questions. If you live near a river, take digital images of it (with or without the class) and use them in a similar way.

The children could be asked to imagine that they are in the picture and then answer questions. For example:

• How big is this river?
• Could you jump across this river?
• Is the river wide or narrow?
• Do you think this river is big or little and how can you tell?
• Does the river look deep?
• Could you wear Wellington boots and paddle in the river?
• Could the river be deeper?
• How do you know that there is only a small amount of water?
• What is the speed of the river?
• Could you safely sail a boat on the river?
• How can you tell if the river is fast-flowing or not?
• Do you think the river will be different in the summer?

With older or higher achieving children, the questions can be more sophisticated. The same image can be used with children of different abilities, and different types of questions will elicit different responses. For example, the following questions will further challenge children’s thinking:

• What can you see on the riverbank?
• Would you call this a river or a stream and why?
• Are there any notable features in this picture? (This will reveal the degree of observation among your children.)
• How is it similar to or different from a river near you? (This is where you can show your digital photographs.)
• What would it feel like to be next to this river? (Children who live in urban areas may not have sat by a river.)
• How is it changing? How could it change? (This ties in with daily weather observations and how the playground and the gutters on school buildings can change after heavy rainfall.)

Tip: Depending on your class circumstances images can be displayed on a computer screen with the questions written on cards. Alternatively, use a vertically tiled screen with a writing frame and a bank of words on one screen and the image on the other.

The web allows you to search for a huge variety of images to answer questions about the longest, shortest, widest, deepest rivers in the world and more.

Tip: Children could be challenged to search the web for as many rivers as they can find and then locate them on a world map.

Developing river vocabulary

Find images from the web that show a number of river features, for example: river source, rapids, waterfall, gorge, stepping stones, meander, bridge or river mouth. First, use them to make a display with everyday words (such as ‘bend’) and the proper word (‘meander’). Talk about the words, draw them, write poems, link with rhymes and cartoons and make games. Next, produce two sets of river cards using these images and play river vocabulary games.

River pairs

This simple game requires concentration from even the youngest children. Shuffle cards with images of rivers on them and then lay them out, face down. Children take it in turns to turn over two at a time to make a pair. As they turn over the cards, the children must use the correct vocabulary to say what each card shows. If the two cards they turn over don’t make a pair, they turn them back over and the next child has a go. The child with the most pairs is the winner.

Tip: If the two cards are of consecutive river features (for example, rapids and a waterfall), ask older children to explain how one follows on from the other.

River order

Once the sequence of river features has been considered, understanding can be tested with this game. Shuffle one set of cards and lay them out face down, explain that the cards must be turned over in order from source to mouth. The first child turns over a card. If it is card number 1, s/he turns over a second card. If it is not number 2, s/he must turn it back over and the next child takes a turn. When all the cards are turned over discuss the sequence. As the children turn over each card, they must say what it shows, using the correct vocabulary.

River story

Present a series of river images on a computer screen to tell the story of a river. Copy and paste the images into a word-processing document and work with your children to place the cards in order from source to mouth. (You can do this by left-clicking on each one, holding the mouse button down and dragging it into the appropriate sequence.)

Tip: When you paste the images into a word-processing document for this activity, make sure you right-click on the image, choose ‘Format picture’ and in ‘Layout’ click on ‘square’.

Once the images are in order, place a textbox alongside each one and either print a copy out for small groups of children to add their own sentence about each image, or ask the children to work in pairs to type a sentence on-screen. Older children can be challenged to produce a description of the order of the images. The detail required will depend on the writing ability of each child. As an extension activity, ask the child to think of cards/images that could be added to the sequence.

Tip: Build up a ‘bank‘ of these images as you explore the web or create a series of files for physical topics, for example on the subjects of coasts, mountains and hills, landscapes, and human features such as shops, houses of different ages, villages and towns.

Understanding how rivers begin: rain

One of the most frequent daily starters is talk about the weather and, on a rainy day, connections can be made between raindrops and running water, running water and rivulets, rivulets and streams and so on.

All children will have opinions about the way rain affects their lives; for example, they might comment that rain means wet play and that they have to wear coats when it rains.

Use web-based images to stimulate discussion about the children’s experiences of rain.

• What can they see, hear and feel in the rain? (Aim to distinguish between playing in gentle or heavy rain.)
• How do they feel on a rainy day at school? What do they do?
• How do they feel on a rainy day at home? What do they do?
• Are they allowed to go out to jump in puddles?

Source: Liz Puchnarewicz’s personal pages (reproduced with permission)

Link children’s experiences to storybooks about rain and rivers, such as Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain (Aardema, 1981, Macmillan) or Mr Gumpy’s Outing (Burningham, 1970, Cape/Henry Holt).

Use stories about raindrops, for example, ‘Three raindrops’ (from Fairy Tales, Jones, 1981, Penguin) in cross-curricular work. This story uses the idea of what happens to individual raindrops when they hit the ground. In PSHE you could cover the effects of boasting against those of praising, by looking at and discussing the different ways in which the raindrops talk. Challenge your children to praise each raindrop.

Tip: Extend the metaphor to consider the power of a single raindrop against groups of drops.

In the images section of Google, type in the word ‘raindrops’ and either ask different children to choose an appropriate image for each part of the story, or offer a pre-chosen selection and get them to choose ones that best suit particular parts of another story.

Have a whole-class discussion about what happens to rain. You could ask the following questions:

• Can raindrops be caught?
• Are raindrops all the same size?
• What happens if rain is collected in your hand or in a bucket?
• What happens to rain on an umbrella?

Developing the children’s opinions can continue the connections to formulate specific geographical questions, such as: ‘What happens to raindrops when they hit the ground?’ and ‘Where does the water go in the playground?’

Line drawings can either be printed out or used as an onscreen resource. This one, from the ScottyLulu website (reproduced with permission of Scott Ligertwood), could be used either as the focus of a discussion on what children do when they see a puddle or on the type of clothing that is appropriate for wet weather.

Tip: Copy this image into drawing software (for example, Paint) and ask small groups of children to change it in a specific way. For example, tell them their version must show that it is raining heavily.

Teaching ideas about composing rain-related music are available on the web. For example, the Isle of Wight Music Centre’s website and the Teaching Ideas website include ideas on rain dances.

Understanding how rivers begin: puddles

Online collections of poems can help children to relate to their own experiences in the playground (see Tooter4kids and Geocities).

Read through appropriate parts of the story on Luke Letters website and talk about how Luke feels when he first encounters a puddle. (Watch out for American spellings on US-based websites.) Encourage your children to choose and use some of the vocabulary on these websites to write their own poems about puddles and rivulets.

Go out and discover where puddles form in the school playground, make a map and replicate it in a sand tray. Talk through where the rain might go after it has left the playground.

If you have a water play area experiment to see what makes the raindrops collect and run down a slope.

Consolidate the learning by asking small groups to storyboard the course of one raindrop’s life from the moment it drops into a puddle to it becoming part of a river. They could use images from the web or Paint software and must explain (either in writing or orally) what each picture shows.

Tip: Differentiate by encouraging higher attaining children to do more than describe the images or to choose more images and explain the changes between each one. Lower attaining children could be asked to produce or select a specific number of images and describe what each one shows.

What makes a river?

Consider your choice of images from the web: you should always have a specific learning activity and purpose in mind.

A series of images can be used to help develop children’s understanding of rivers at different scales, in different environments and at different points along each river’s course. Links to four suggested images (A-D) are shown below.

Each image could be copied into word-processing software or presentation software (such as PowerPoint) and given a caption by the children. To focus their investigation, give the children a series of graded questions, for example:

• What do pictures A-D show?
• What is the difference between a stream and a river?

(A) [http://www.msu.edu/~borgertc/summercamp/streams.jpg]

(B) [http://www.cpaws.org/images/carcajou-river.jpg]

(C) [http://www-math.science.unitn.it/Bike/Countries/Europe/Tour_Reports/Baltic2000/Lake.jpg]

(D) [http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/brora/brora/images/rivermouth.jpg]

Consolidate children’s understanding of the features of the middle course of a river by reading an extract from Wind in the Willows (for example, where Mole meets Ratty for the first time) or by using two illustrated extracts of the River bank. Work with the children to make a picture map of all the river features mentioned.

Rivers in your locality

If there is a stream or river near your school, visit it and discuss how the stream moves downslope.

Back in the classroom, go to Multimap enter your school postcode in the search box and a 1:10,000 scale local map will be displayed onscreen. Reduce the scale to1:25,000 and use a corresponding aerial view of your area (also available on the website). Finger walk around the map and talk about the course of the stream or river.

Tips: Both map and aerial photograph can be enlarged, but will lose some definition. Use interactive whiteboards or data projectors to enable group work.

To find out where the rivers are in a larger area, go to the Ordnance Survey website. You will find ‘Get a Map’ in the ‘Free and fun’ section. A 1:50,000 map extract centred upon your school postcode will show the nearest streams and rivers and the roads to reach them. The StreetMap website also includes local maps and small aerial photographs.

Tip: These maps and photographs will also show those stretches of water that could form the focus of more extensive fieldwork visits (see ‘Developing observational skills’ below).

Developing observation skills outside the classroom

Streams and rivers create a natural excitement in five- to seven-year-olds. A planned visit to a local stream will help your children to relate what they have learned in the classroom to their home environment and can add real value to the topic work.

Tip: Geography and other curriculum areas are covered in many ways, such as the way rivers work (geography), safety near water (PSHE), and uses of the river/stream, and types of crossing now and in the past (geography and history). You can preface these with a number of web-based activities for each curriculum area.

Use websites to demonstrate the way that rivers work. For example, you can demonstrate that rivers always flow downhill by showing the short graphic of a child coming down a slide on the BBC Landmarks website, then go out and prove it in reality using degradable material such as ‘Pooh sticks’ or dog biscuits.

Symbols

Draw children’s attention to safety signs near a river or stream. Before going on your river fieldwork, visit the Highway Code website. The ‘warning signs’ section includes a number of signs found near rivers (and other symbols can be found on the Schooltrain website:

• a hump-backed bridge (shown here)
• a ford
• a swing bridge

Can children say what each sign shows?

Point out that many signs are for drivers. What about people on foot or cycling? Ask the children to draw river safety signs that would be appropriate for them.

Look out for warning signs during your river visit, and identify features that would benefit from having warning signs.

After your river visit, groups or pairs can design their own signs to place near streams or rivers. Display each sign on the wall or on the computer screen and ask others to describe what they show. The child or group who drew the sign should confirm whether the description is correct or not.

Other rivers

Look out for key stage 1 river work on other websites. The Schooltrain website also has a section on the River Ribble: from source to sea. Often websites contain interactive maps, which your children can investigate as individuals, in pairs or in small groups.

Tip: Older children and higher achievers can be asked to list all the ways that humans have built on or by the River Ribble.

Other school websites can also be an inspiration. The children of Ambleside Primary School have done two river studies, which are published on their school website.

Cross-curricular and curriculum links

Large corporate and charitable trust websites encourage considerations of aspects of education for sustainable development (ESD) because everyone needs a supply of clean water. E4S and Water in Schools have suggestions for key stage 1 classwork.

Citizenship and sustainability are taken seriously by Thames Explorer. Visits can be arranged and you can prepare by comparing clean and dirty water.

Tip: These elements can be developed further in the Science scheme of work unit ‘Ourselves’ (primary science unit 1A) especially in relation to the importance of a constant supply of clean water.

This work covers a number of national curriculum geography requirements: Geographical enquiry and skills (1a-d and 2a-e); Knowledge and understanding of places (3a-e); Knowledge and understanding of patterns and processes (4a-b); Knowledge and understanding of environmental change and sustainable development (5a-b); Breadth of study (6a-b, 7a-b).

In relation to the QCA scheme of work unit 4 Going to the seaside, the geographical elements used here give a good structure and learning objectives for a riverside investigation.

By the end of year 2 most children should have created a sound vocabulary of river and water words. They should be able to understand that rivers and their environment can change from source to mouth and they should appreciate that rivers are used in different ways. The work described here creates a good platform for the work on rivers and flooding, which form the focus of the key stage 2 unit.