Intrepid Explorers - Lesson 1: Ibn Battuta

This pack is perfect for developing children's awareness of the past and historical language and provides lots of opportunities for children to identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different time periods.

With lesson plans, informative slides, activity ideas, differentiated worksheets and much more, these Year 1 and 2 'Intrepid Explorers lessons contain everything you need to teach your children about the lives of significant explorers across the ages.

This scheme is also part of a Topic Bundle - perfect if you want to teach your class about our 'amazing world' as a cross-curricular topic!

In this first lesson, children journey back over 700 years ago to find out about the travels of Ibn Battuta. Using source material from Ibn Battuta's book - The Travels - children will discover some of the places he travelled to, the people he met and the things he saw.

You can choose to turn your classroom into the world that Ibn Batutta explored with a location treasure hunt or through immersive drama activities.

This instantly downloadable lesson pack comes with everything you need to find out about the travels of Ibn Battuta, including: a detailed lesson plan with a range of activities, PDF slideshow with example timelines and printable resources.

Children move on to find out about Christopher Columbus, including when and where he lived. They will learn what Columbus set out to do by sailing west on his first voyage of exploration and also find out what he achieved.

This lesson has a strong focus on oracy and chronology as children are challenged to sequence or retell the events from his first voyage in chronological order, using maps as a visual aid for support.

This instantly downloadable lesson pack comes with everything you need to teach your children about the first voyage of Christoper Columbus including: a detailed lesson plan with a range of activities, PDF slideshow and printable resources.

In this next lesson, children find out about the difficult and dangerous work involved with sea voyages during the 15th century. They will find out what it was like to live and work on board the Santa Maria and compare and contrast these experiences with a modern day ocean liner.

Children bring their understanding to life by writing diary entries in role or building a model of the Santa Maria.

This complete lesson pack comes with everything you need to teach your class about finding out about sea voyages then and now, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and a range of printable resources offering a variety of access points for your learners.

In this lesson, children learn all about Neil Armstrong, including: his early life and career at NASA and his involvement in the Apollo 11 moon landings. Children will use photographs from the Apollo 11 moon landing and use these to consider how Neil Armstrong and the other astronauts might have felt at key points during the mission.

Children will learn about the distinction between within living memory and beyond living memory and that we can use people's memories as well as photographs and film footage to build up a picture of the events of the moon landing.

This complete lesson pack comes with everything you need to teach your class how to consider people's memories and feelings about the moon landing, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and a range of printable resources offering a variety of access points for your learners.

Children will look at how the space race and moon landing led to amazing technological advances during the 1950s and 60s. They will come to understand the impact that this technology has had on our lives today.

Children apply their understanding by discussing and rating the importance of some of these inventions - such as batteries, scratch-proof glasses and smoke alarms - by playing Space Tech Showdown!

During this lesson, children will compare and contrast what life was like at the time of Christopher Columbus’ sea voyages and Neil Armstrong’s moon missions. They will use a timeline to establish how far back in the past each time period was before comparing and contrasting aspects of life during the 1490s and 1960s.

Challenge your class by asking them to identify the ways of life associated with different periods or to sort the experiences and acheivements of Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong into a Venn diagram!

This complete lesson pack comes with everything you need to teach your class how to compare and contrast life in different time periods, including a detailed lesson plan, PDF lesson slides and a range of printable resources offering a variety of access points for your learners.

Children will review what they have learned about famous explorers throughout history before moving on to find out about a range of modern explorers.

This lesson provides a jumping-off point for children to compare and contrast the different ways that people can exhibit bravery and curiosity in our modern world.

This instantly downloadable lesson pack comes with everything you need to investigate modern explorers and exploration with your class, including a detailed lesson plan with a range of activities, PDF slideshow and printable resources.

This Year 1/2 History Knowledge Organiser is designed to support your children’s understanding of key vocabulary linked to famous explorers across history, both within and beyond living memory. To encourage your children to think deeply about this topic, enquiry questions have been included for discussion.