Ideas for display

There are many different displays you can make using both children's work and other resources. Many of the ideas for display can be adapted. Titles may be word processed at a size of 100 or more. Suggested titles are written in green. Keep a copy of children's work, not only for assessment purposes but also for future years so that other children can see samples of previous work. This collected work can also be used as reference material.

1) RIVER BOOKS. For this display collect as many different books (fiction and non-fiction), photos (mounted), magazine pictures etc. Encourage the children to bring in river books as well either by going to the school library or the public library (this in itself is a valuable exercise for children and can be done in a small group with a classroom assistant). Find a suitable table or desktop area and arrange the books so that they are easily accessible to the children. Make sure that this display is done before the actual topic starts. As the children can always add their books to the display afterwards. Note that if the children are used to looking at display books, the display will become untidy and will need rearranging daily by the teacher or perhaps even the children. It is a good idea to keep this display for the duration of the project so that the children can refer to it. Many of the activities also suggest that the children should refer to books and a display is one way of doing this.

River Book Display

2) RIVERS AROUND THE WORLD. Again collect as many different pictures of rivers as you can from around the World (the photo gallery is a good starting point). Teachers need to make sure that they have at least 20 pictures, and that all continents of the World are represented. Again the pictures need to be mounted and it is a good idea to have a label stating the river's name and which country and continent the river is located in. Suggested sources of photos other than the photo gallery are personal photos, friends and relations photos; pictures from CD ROM's such as Encarta, Hutchinsons, Comptons and CD ROM's consisting entirely of photos; newspapers and magazines; and books (these would either need to be photocopied in colour or scanned and then printed out). These photos can then be organised in several different ways. One way is to organise them according to river and using a World map (make sure that the rivers are drawn on) make arrows from each photo to the correct river on the map. Another way is to use the World map and label the continents, and then make an arrow from each river to the continent where it is located. If a World map is not available, the photos can be organised under continent headings (according to which continent the river is located in). If the display board is quite low and easily accessible to children, the teacher could make the arrows from a durable material (thick card protected by sticky back plastic), the children can take down the arrows and see if they can match the rivers up to the correct continents using the information available. It is a good idea to also keep this display for the duration of he project so that the children can refer to it but teachers might like to change the pictures on display for different ones every 4 weeks or so.

Rivers Around The World

3) RIVERS IN THE UPPER, MIDDLE AND LOWER COURSES. This is a display which can be made by the children by the teacher or a classroom assistant will need to supervise the children when they are stapling up the display for safety reasons (this display relates to activity 2 of the section what are the features of rivers, both natural and man-made?) The children can collect photos in groups and these photos can be organised under the headings of Upper, Middle and Lower Course. 

4) RIVER COLLAGE DISPLAY. For this display the children can either make an individual collage (on A3 paper) or as a class make one big collage (this display refers to activity 5 in the section what are the features of a river both natural and man-made?). If the children do the latter activity, then supervision from a classroom assistant (if the display board is outside of he classroom) or teacher (if the display board is inside the classroom) is needed, and it is suggested that no more than 4 children work on the display at one time (allow about 20 minutes for each group).

River Collage

If the children do the former activity (individual collages), then the teacher can choose the best 6 to 8, mount them and display them.

5) FEATURES OF RIVERS. Once the children have made the river features 3D model in groups (this display refers to activity 11 of the section what are the features of rivers both natural and man-made?) the teacher can display these models. Note that a heavy duty staple gun is required as the cardboard required for this activity is thick. In addition to the feature labels already on the models, the children's writing about their model (how they constructed it, and the features of their model) can be displayed alongside the model. 

3-D River Model Display

6) RIVER POSTERS/DICTIONARIES. The teacher can make a display of the children's river posters and dictionaries. The posters can be stapled up while the dictionaries can be held in place using a drawing pin or a board pin. It is a good idea to choose three or four river posters and display them in the centre of the board and pin the dictionaries around the posters.

7) WATERFALL DISPLAY. Once the children have written poems about a waterfall or even specific waterfalls, these poems can then be displayed (activity 9 and 10 of the section what are the features of rivers?). The teacher can also display photos of actual waterfalls alongside the children's work. A separate display of the waterfall adverts can either be made or they can be incorporated on the same display as he poems. This will depend on how large the display board is and how many poems/adverts are suitable for display purposes.

8) RIVER POEMS DISPLAY. Once the children have written their river poems, again either general ones or ones about a specific river, these can be displayed. If any of the children have written about a specific river, it is a good idea to display a picture of the river either above or below the child's poem. If the children have written genera poems, it is still a good idea to display about 4 to 6 river pictures to break up the monotony of the text.

9) STREAM VISIT DISPLAY. If the children visit a local stream or river, it is a good idea to take some photos of them, both posed and natural (i.e. unposed). if the school has a digital camera, this is even better as the children can photograph each other. These photos can then be developed or printed out (n the case of the digital camera), mounted and displayed. The children could then write two or three paragraphs about their visit (where they went, what they saw, what they did, what they learnt etc.) and this written work could be displayed alongside the photos.

10) PROJECT DISPLAY. This display could incorporate any of the following; Flooding Leaflets, Itaipu Dam/Aswan High Dam Leaflets, Bewl Water Leaflet, Stream Project, Nile Cruises etc. For this display the teacher will need to decide which projects the class are going to tackle. A small table or desktop area is ideal for displaying this work. Different projects can be displayed together or one type of project can be displayed on its own, depending on which projects are tackled by the class. 

River Projects

11) WATER POSTERS DISPLAY. If the teacher has requested any of the posters (A2 water cycle and/or Ollie the Otter Series) from Southern Water, these can be displayed as a series of posters to alert children to the various aspects of water treatment, water conservation, sources of water, sources of waste water etc.). 

12) WATER CONSERVATION POSTERS. Once the children have designed and made their water conservation posters (either hand written or computerised), these can be displayed. Other posters and pictures about water conservation (also drought which is not directly dealt with in the topic about rivers as it is primarily caused by a lack of rainfall) can be displayed alongside these posters.

13) RIVERS DISPLAY. Over the course of the topic, the teacher can collect several pieces of work deemed suitable for display. If there is a very large display board available, then these pieces of work can be amalgamate into one large display. Possible pieces of work include; waterfall poems/adverts, river poems, river posters, 3D river models, river dictionaries, and the project work (e.g. flooding leaflet etc.).

14) FLOOD PICTURES. Get the children to find pictures from books, CD ROM's and other sources of floods. Mount these pictures with a description of when and where the flood occurred and display them when the children are doing flooding.

Rivers

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