Home Sweet Home Spring 1 2025
Home Sweet Home
Spring 1 2025
Integrated Project Emerald Class Year 1 and 2
Science, English and Geography
Thinking and Creativity
DT and History
Rationale:
After sharing the book “A place called Home” and investigating the photographs on the world map, the children are inspired to become explorers and use their scientific knowledge to find out about materials used to build houses in different parts of the world. They will travel to different countries exploring the properties and characteristics of materials, they will carry out investigations and record their findings for each science investigation. Using an explorers journal in the form of a diary, they will record what they discovered as they travel to each new location. Building on their geographical knowledge, we will look at the continents and oceans they visit, the climates and weather in different parts of the world and draw conclusions about why homes are built in a particular style. The children will think about what makes a home for different people, the environment, their needs and the materials that are available. Looking at the fictional story “Mrs Mole, I’m home”, the children will write their own narrative of Mr Mole’s journey home. We will share our journals and science investigations with Y3/4 showing what we have discovered.
Hook:
The children will share the book “A place called home” and look at a series of photographs placed on a large map of the world. What do these photos show? How are they the same or different to the pictures in the book? Establish that the photos are of homes/houses from different parts of the world. Why do you think they are all different? Look at the location. Why could you not build an igloo in Africa? Tell the children that we are going to become explorers and travel the world, using our scientific knowledge to look at the different materials and how they are used.
Sorting materials - we talked about the difference between an object and the material it was made from. Then we sorted materials in different ways and looked at the names of different materials.
First stop on our Scientific Explorers adventure was Greenland. We found that the Inuit people built igloos for shelter while they were hunting for seals and caribou. We have investigated ice and how to rescue a creature from the frozen ocean. We also attempted to build an igloo using sugar cubes. It was harder than it looked!!!
Second stop - the North American Plains. Here we have found Indigenous people build teepes when they are moving the herds of animals to different places. Teepes need to be well insulated, animal skins are traditionally used. We have investigated insulators today, to see which material kept the water the warmest.
After finding out about insulators and the types of materials that kept the water warm, we made our own teepees and chose a suitable insulating fabric!
Our third stop on our explorers journey was to South America. We visited the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Here we found stilted houses high above the ground to protect people from floods and animals that may want to visit! Our science experiments focused on finding out how to make different materials stronger and stiffer to create a stable structure. We were challenged to build a structure that could hold a cup of water above the table. Look at our results!
Our fourth stop has been to Africa. We have visited South Africa and seen how people build shanty towns on the edges of the big cities. These are temporary homes made of materials which are available, so they are all different. These homes need to provide shelter. We looked at ways to make paper waterproof by changing or adding to it. We found some very inventive ways.
For our fifth stop we visited Iran and saw Adobe houses made of mud bricks. We had great fun trying to make our own mud bricks stronger by adding different materials.
In Week 6 we returned to the UK and visited Herefordshire to look at stone houses. We were amazed to find out about the different types of rocks used in stone buildings. We carried out our own investigation to establish which were the hardest rocks.
After a wonderful project using our scientific and geographical skills to explore homes around the world, we shared our newfound knowledge with Sapphire class.
