Writing a Non-Chronological Report: The Structure of the Rainforest

As part of our cross curricular links, we worked research the structure of the rainforest. Since we were learning about Biomes and South America this year, we were able to use our prior knowledge and our writing skills to write a detailed and informative text. I hope you will agree! Here is just one of our examples:

The Lake District National Park: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Tourism

Year 3 have looked at the Lake District National Park, but in year 5 we investigated it from the perspective of tourism. Of course, it was important to understand what is a National Park but we were able to see both points of view with the importance of tourism for the local economy, but this needs to be balanced with the need to protect the beauty of the landscape and ensure that this is maintained for future generations to enjoy. We were then able to consider solutions such as; a park and ride system like they have in Chester, further restrictions on planning laws to reduce the number of holiday homes to preserve the community and maintaining footpaths with natural materials such as local rocks.

"I understand that tourism is so important for the local economy and people's lives but we must preserve the beauty of the physical landscape for the future." Kieran R

"I enjoyed learning independently about the Lake District especially the important of Beatrix Potter on preserving the landscape. I love reading so I felt I had a real connection with this lesson!" Isabelle J 

Mapping Skills

As part of our topic on South America, we learned the countries of South America and using Atlases, were able to locate the countries and their capital cities. We also were able to locate the Amazon River, the Amazon Rainforest, the Andes (being the world's longest mountain range) and the Equator.

Furthermore, we learned latitude and longitude and were able to find and locate the latitude and longitude co-ordinates of many countries.

Maisie: "It was great fun being able to work on our own using just an atlas to locate and find the co-ordinates of the countries, capitals and main physical features of South America. The giant globe was such fun to use too!"

Biomes and Vegetation Belts

We have used our knowledge that we learned about South America to deepen our understanding of the 'Forest Biome'. We drew a cross section of the Rainforest, labelled it and gained an understanding of what each layer is like. We asked challenging questions to compare this sub-type of the Forest Biome to that of the other sub-type, which is; Temperate Forest. The UK is within this Biome.

Next year, we hope to use our fieldwork skills and our acquired knowledge when we visit Delamere forest, a temperate deciduous forest within the north west region of the UK, to compare the two types of Forest Biomes