Year 2 Exemplars: Overview

Curriculum overview

The theme for Year 2 is People are connected to many places.

The child's understanding of the earth, as represented by a world map and a globe, is developed at this Year level, together with an understanding of the connections between places. The illustrations of practice use a large world map and a world globe as their main teaching resources.

It is important that children understand the use of both a globe and a map to represent the world, and that they develop knowledge about the main locational aids on each of these (such as the poles, equator, tropics and hemispheres). They should also learn to recognise shapes and locations of continents and oceans as well as some important nations and places. The illustrations use different methods to assist this learning.

About the illustrations

Illustration 1: Our place on the globe is a set of activities which can be done with a globe of the world, to make children familiar with it as a model of the earth. They include references to important places, spaces and shapes. The activities can be spread over a long or short time and can be developed into more complex extensions.

Illustration 2: Mapping world interconnections develops the concept of interconnections between the children and other places in Australia and the world. It suggests mapping these connections in a methodical way so that children learn locational geography and also understand the complexity and richness of interconnections in the world.