Year 1 Exemplars: Overview

Curriculum overview

The theme for Year 1 is Places have distinctive features.

The focus is mostly confined to the child's local area, but there is opportunity for some comparisons with other places. There is also the opportunity for the child's imagination to be extended by looking at changes to the local area in the past and to consider possible changes in the future.

Because fieldwork is such an important aspect of geography, the illustrations of practice suggest simple ways that children can observe, classify and record aspects of their surrounding environment. Looking at features in the schoolyard and recording their location on a map helps expand the concept of place, and also the skills of map representation. Observing and recording weather patterns demonstrates methodical data gathering in a simple way and shows the basis of the more complex weather information seen by children in the mass media, and on ICT apps and websites.

About the illustrations

Illustration 1: My place explores three aspects of the concept of place by involving children in practical activities. The starting point is a classification of places in the school grounds into 'natural', 'constructed' and 'managed'. This leads on to the skills of relating their location to a large-scale map. The value of places to individuals is then explored, together with the idea of caring for them. A selection of photographs of places is provided to support activities.

Illustration 2: Investigating the weather focuses on learning about the contrasts in weather patterns and seasons by starting with simple recording of the weather patterns of the local area, and then comparing these with cities across Australia. In each investigation the children use simple symbols and pictures to record information to demonstrate changes and differences.