Y1/2 (B): What is it like to live in Shanghai?
Use this unit hub to inform your medium-term plan and navigate to related resources, all in line with the KS1 Geography curriculum.
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Unit outcomes
Pupils who are secure will be able to:
- Give examples of human and physical features.
- Identify features they see on a walk.
- Explain the location of features using some directional language.
- Use an aerial photograph to locate physical and human features.
- Draw simple pictures or symbols on a sketch map.
- Draw compass points.
- Name the continent they live in.
- Use an atlas to locate the UK and China on a world map.
- Use an atlas to locate Europe and Asia on a world map.
- Identify China’s physical and human geography.
- Sort physical and human features using photographs.
- Identify physical and human features in images of Shanghai.
- Compare Shanghai to their locality.
- Identify similarities and differences between human and physical features.
Lesson 1 involves fieldwork in the area surrounding the school. It is important to risk-assess the proposed route taking into account any relevant school risk assessment policies and procedures. Please be aware that lesson 1 may take longer than 1 hour.
Lesson 1 requires a device to take photographs (one per group).
Suggested prior learning
Y1/2 (B): Would you prefer to live in a hot or cold place?
Get startedLessons
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 1: What can we see in our local area?
- To recognise physical and human features.
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 2: Can we map our local area?
- To draw a sketch map.
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 3: Where in the world is China?
- To name and locate some continents on a world map.
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 4: What can you see in China?
- To identify physical and human features of a non-European country.
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 5: What is Shanghai like?
- To describe what it is like in Shanghai.
Y1/2 (B): Lesson 6: How is Shanghai different from our local area?
- To compare Shanghai to a small area of the UK.
Key knowledge
Related content
Unit resources

Knowledge organiser: Geography – Y1 What is it like to live in Shanghai?
Aimed at pupils, a single page which gives key facts and definitions from the unit "What is it like to…

Vocabulary display – Geography Y1: What is it like to live in Shanghai?
A display version of the vocabulary from the unit ‘What is it like to live in Shanghai?’.
Cross-curricular opportunities
Art and design
English: Spoken language
Maths: Geometry – position and direction