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Activity: The Spherical Earth
This activity is very effective in the explanation of the earth being a sphere as it is a tricky concept to teach and to come to understand, especially for young learners. I would use this as an entry point to the teaching of Space as I believe it is an important concept for children to explore and begin to understand. It is clear, from working with young children that they do see the Earth as having an ‘up’ and a ‘down’ and they wonder how people and buildings stay upright if they are ‘upside down’ on the globe. I would use the activity with the polar bear on the North Pole and the penguin on the South Pole. I would show the globe to the children and do a roleplay between the polar bear and penguin displaying how either one thinks the other is upside down, but in reality it’s how they perceive one another. While I appreciate this is a tricky concept to grasp at a young age I would definitely use the earth mosaic template for the children to draw a landscape above the dotted line and below it the seabed or rocks. When the mosaics are arranged in a circle the children can stand in various positions and notice that there is no real ‘up’ and ‘down’ when they search for it because depending on where they are looking from the pictures are positioned differently. This is a really interesting way to explore the spherical earth that I am excited to put into practice soon.