Mission Accomplished: Year 5 Become Secret Agents to Explore South America!

To introduce the continent, the children were transported into the world of international espionage. Working in teams, their first task was to establish their identities. We had some brilliantly creative agent team names such as ‘The mappers’ and ‘The Geography gang’. 

The Mission: Unlock the Key Words

The agents were handed a series of top-secret clues, but the answers couldn't be found on a screen. Instead, the children had to rely on their trusty tool: the atlas.

To "crack the code" and unlock vital keywords linked to the continent, the teams had to successfully navigate and investigate:

• The Hemispheres: Discovering exactly where South America sits on the globe.

• The Surrounding Seas: Mapping out the massive oceans that border the continent.

• The Major Countries: Identifying some of the largest countries hidden within South America’s borders.

It was wonderful to watch the children supporting each other, dividing up the clues, and cross-referencing their atlas indexes like seasoned pros.

'We learned that South America is more in the southern hemisphere than the nothern hemisphere. Our group was called the Geographical geeks and we solved the clues quickly.' - Isabella 

'The seas around South America are the Pacific, Atlantic and Caribbean.' - Oliver

'We found that Brazil and Argentina are the biggest countries in South America.' - Bleu

By the end of the lesson, the codes were cracked, the keywords were unlocked, and Year 5 had firmly established a brilliant foundational knowledge of South American geography.