British History: Geography and Mapwork

This is being posted a little out of order but eventually I should have a good series of posts on British History from Pre-history to Modern times. This was how we started our studies on the history of the British Isles:


Geography:

I always like starting our studies with mapwork so the kids can visualise where the events take place. I chose to have them look at a number of different maps (physical and political), identify the different countries that make up the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and locate the major cities in each of these countries. They then proceeded to make a salt dough map which I love doing because they have fun with it and I think it really solidifies their learning.

They identified the following cities and islands:

London

Birmingham

Manchester

Newcastle

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Belfast

Cardiff

Orkney islands

Outer and Inner Hebrides

Isle of Mann

Guernsey 

Jersey

And then they identified the following rivers, mountains and seas:

River Thames

Grampian Mountains

Cambrian Mountains

Peninnes

Southern Uplands

Northwest Highlands

Celtic sea

Irish sea

Atlantic Ocean

English Channel

Straits of Dover

North Sea

Freeworldmaps provides some very helpful maps to work from.