Urban spaces cross-curricular work: Literacy
Article
Please note: this resource pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum.
This is part of a set of subject areas also covering History, Science, and Art & Design.
See also Cross-curricular learning
Public spaces offer a range of opportunities for children's learning, and can enable children to investigate, observe, wonder, record and create.
The starting-point is the green man carvings often to be found on public buildings. Wikipedia has an entry for the Green Man with several images - see Green Man. Also ask Google Images for 'Kirtimukha' the Hindu green man. And you may have a local group of morris dancers!
You can also read about another variant on the green man, Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, helped by a text-breaker. See also the text-breaker notes at the end of Reading documents.
There is also a pollution debate - is the area more polluted now than about 100 years ago?
Questioning and speaking and listening are at the heart of this material. It is based around two key questions:
- What is your local urban space like now, and how is it used?
- What was it like in the past, and how was it used then?
Much of this focuses on speaking and listening, as well as on reading and writing.
Attached files:
- Urban Spaces Literacy Teachers Notes
188.9 KB PDF document - Story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
150.2 KB PDF document - The Green Man worldwide record sheet
22 KB Word document - The Green Man Worldwide Record Sheet
386.1 KB PDF document - Story of the Kirtimukha - the Hindu, Sikh and Jain green man
159.4 KB PDF document - A Midsummer Nights Dream Texbreaker
24.5 KB Word document