For the Love of Books: A Guide to Britain and Ireland
If you haven’t realised by now, I love an infographic book. When we are talking about teaching primary school aged children, something that I came to realise very quickly over my career is that adding visuals can really support with understanding. If we are talking about lower prior attainers, it gives them a reference point. It does the same for children who find reading challenging as it can support meaning for new vocabulary. If you work on a daily basis with EAL learners, visuals can be key in supporting them with new language development and as visual cues for understanding instructions. It can also support other children with developing a deeper understanding of topics and terminology, and can inspire children to come up with their own drawings to support their developing knowledge.
A Guide to Britain and Ireland is another brilliant infographic style book. It may not have a fancy title, but from the moment you look at the cover, you can start to recognise some of the key features of the British Isles immediately from the images and icons you are presented with. It’s a book full of wonderful and interesting facts that support the children with learning about the mix of history, geography and culture around Britain. Plus some of the facts are just really cool.
History, Geography and so much more!
First of all, the inside cover starts off with a timeline beginning in 5000BCE all the way up to the modern day, giving a few brief facts about the history of Britain. This is elaborated on a couple of pages in, providing more detail about specific events in our history. There is also a timeline showing information about all of the monarchs that Britain has had; a timeline of some of the great inventions that have been developed in Britain and a timeline of Britain’s goings on during ancient times. I’m a big fan of timelines and it presents all of this history in an interesting and informative way using images to support.
What I really love about this book is the amount of geography that is also presented in a truly accessible way, all centred around the British Isles. It introduces the children to the iconic features of the different parts of Britain. There is a great page comparing some of the different human features of Britain – Big Ben, the Spire of Dublin, the Angel of the North and of course, Blackpool Tower - placing them next to each other in height order and providing various facts and information alongside them. There’s interesting information about the weather, facts about life in the countryside and a range of infographic style maps that show key details about different parts of Britain. Did you know that there are currently an estimated 1 million hedgehogs in the UK. Did you also know that this figure was more like 36 million in 1950. What does that tell you about how things have changed in Britain over the last seventy years!
Other stuff
This isn’t just a book that focuses on the history and geography of Britain. There is so much more to learn within its pages. In terms of giving children a great overview of how life can be in Britain, it presents a range of facts and knowledge that the children can easily digest and take on board. There’s information about the laws that people are expected to follow, famous buildings and landmarks, what schools were and are like, weird and wonderful food that is available and animals that either live in Britain, are held in captivity or can be housed as pets. Did you know that the UK has approximately 1.89 million dairy cows!
All of this information is backed up by interesting and relevant images and icons to support the infographic structure. It’s not a book where you have to read everything in it, it’s one that children can dip in and out of or refer to a specific page for a specific element of their learning. If you want children to learn more about Britain, and learn things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of or have time to teach them about, it’s an extremely valuable resource.
Developing a cultural understanding
Lots of the information provided in this book is a window into what makes Britain ‘British’. We want children to understand how the culture across Britain has developed, and it provides a window into some of the aspects that you might want children to research for themselves, from music events like Glastonbury, to the oldest BBC television soap opera ‘Pobyl y Cwm’ which is Welsh. It talks about traditions, like singing the Scottish poem ‘Auld Lang Syne’ by Robert Burns at midnight on New Year’s Eve and watching a traditional ‘Punch and Judy’ puppet show at the seaside. There are facts about sports, homes, weird and wonderful things and even the stories behind different street names. It really is full of wonderful facts that the children will love learning about.
There is also a page dedicated to books, and I love talking about books. More specifically, it presents information about the books of Britain and Ireland. It provides the children with information about the titles of Roald Dahl, William Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling. It introduces children to the British Library and some of the famous historical literary items that are housed there as well as some of the other historical texts that exist in Britain and Ireland. Again, it is all presented with visuals and in bitesize chunks for the children to easily digest and take in.
This is another great book that children will love. I’ve used it for children to refer to when teaching topics about Britain and the British Isles, but it’s also one that the children can read for enjoyment, dipping in and out of it when they want to learn something new.