Mountains Topic Enrichment Pack

Get ready for a hike across mountains with this cross-curricular pack designed to inform and engage your Year 5/6 children! This Mountains KS2 Topic Enrichment Pack offers seven engaging lessons spanning Art, Computing and RE, all carefully crafted to help your class develop key skills across the curriculum.

Your class will:

• Explore and recreate artwork in the styles of landscape painters Albert Bierstadt and Nicholas Roerich
• Improve their data handling skills with information about some of the world's tallest and most famous mountains
• Find out about Tibetan Buddhism and the holy city of Lhasa in the Himalayan mountains.

Whether you’re looking to enrich your existing Mountains topic or deliver a mini cross-curricular project, this pack provides everything you need—lesson plans, slides, activity sheets and resources—ready to download and teach.

You might also be interested in our KS2 Geography scheme, Mountains, or our KS2 Science scheme, Mountain Habitats.

Albert Bierstadt

This lesson introduces your class to Albert Bierstadt, an artist famous for his portrayals of the American West. Focus is on his artwork of the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada and other American mountains.

Your class will discuss and analyse Bierstadt’s paintings and look at the different ways that he created light in his landscape paintings. They will think about his use of colour and how he has romanticised the landscape views he painted, and then are challenged to create a painting in the style of Bierstadt’s landscapes using one of the techniques they have discussed.

This Albert Bierstadt KS2 Art lesson pack includes an easy-to-follow plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources.

View Art Lesson 1

Nicholas Roerich

Russian artist, author and thinker, Nicholas Roerich, created over 7000 paintings in his life, many of which portrayed mountains. This lesson pack helps you to explore these paintings with your class.

Children will learn about the artist and what influenced his artwork. They will think about which mountains would have inspired the Russian artist’s work and discuss his use of religion as inspiration for many pieces of art. Your class are then challenged to paint a mountain scene in the style of Roerich’s work.

A lesson plan, a set of PDF slides, activity ideas and printable resources are all included in this downloadable, ready-to-teach Nicholas Roerich KS2 Art pack.

View Art Lesson 2

Spreadsheets and Graphs

This lesson allows your class to improve their data handling skills as they input and analyse data on the heights of some of the world's tallest and most famous mountains.

Children will look at how they can use computer software to create charts and graphs to display data about different mountains. They will need to gather their data through research and use this information to create informative graphs.

A lesson plan, a set of PDF slides, activity ideas and printable resources are all included in this downloadable, ready-to-teach lesson pack.

View Computing Lesson 1

Buddhist Beliefs

This lesson introduces your class to some of the fundamental beliefs of Buddhists, as well as background information about who Buddha was and where Buddhism originated.

Children will learn about Siddhartha Gautama and his journey to becoming Buddha. They will listen to his life story and learn about his teachings and different Buddhist beliefs, including Nirvana, the Four Noble Truths and reincarnation. Children are challenged to recall some of the fundamental Buddhist beliefs and forms of worship and have the opportunity to practise meditation.

Everything you need to teach this lesson is included in the downloadable pack: a plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources.

View RE Lesson 1

Tibetan Buddhism

This lesson looks at Buddhism in Tibet, set on a high plateau amongst some of the highest mountains in the world.

Children begin to focus their learning on Tibetan Buddhism and learn about how this branch of Buddhism differs from others. They will learn about the lamas of the religion and the significance of the Dalai Lama. The children then think about the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese and how this may have affected the religion and people who lived there.

This Tibetan Buddhism KS2 RE lesson pack includes an easy-to-follow plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources.

View RE Lesson 2

The Holy City of Lhasa

This lesson introduces your class to a city with one of the highest elevations on earth - Lhasa. It is Tibet's most holy city.

Your class will learn all about the city, and why it is important to Buddhists today. They will locate it within the Himalayan mountains and discuss why they think that foreigners were not allowed into the city.

A lesson plan, a set of PDF slides, activity ideas and printable resources are all included in this downloadable, ready-to-teach lesson pack.

View RE Lesson 3

Pilgrimages to Lhasa

This lesson looks at what a pilgrimage is, and why pilgrims undertake long journeys to the holy city of Lhasa.

During the teaching input, children will watch a video of a Buddhist’s pilgrimage to Lhasa and explore what prostrations are and why they are performed. They will discuss the effects that the pilgrimages have on the people who take them and why they are meant to be hard journeys.

Everything you need to teach this lesson is included in the downloadable pack: a plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources.

View RE Lesson 4