Getting your bearings+

Our sessions in the park were designed to offer some real-world integration of the learning taking place in the classroom. The focus was on navigation, including direction and bearings, but then led into planning routes to be followed and thinking about distances.
The sessions began with an introduction on correct compass use and allowed the children to identify North. They then began to gain confidence in using the compass to face in a given bearing's direction. This was then extended to include identifying objects, identifying their bearings and travelling a given distance toward them. This involved the children beginning to think about the pace at which they walked and how many paces that they would need to take in order to cover a set distance.
Further practise and planning led to scavenger hunt activities being undertaken and multi-point routes being created that could be followed by others.
The park offered a great space for this as it is accessible, open, has a variety of terrain and land features in easy reach and even has toilets!