Spatial awareness and location < Back to Shape and Space Spatial awareness and location Stage 1 Junior & Senior Infants Through appropriately playful and engaging learning experiences, children should be able to Stage 2 1st & 2nd Class Through appropriately playful and engaging learning experiences, children should be able to Stage 3 3rd & 4th Class Through appropriately playful and engaging learning experiences, children should be able to Stage 4 Fifth and Sixth class Through appropriately engaging learning experiences, children should be able to develop a sense of spatial awareness in relation to their bodies and the immediate environment. describe the spatial features of objects and theirmrelative position in space. use spatial knowledge for the purposes of orientation and navigation. visualise and model location using symbolic co-ordinates. describe, interpret and record directional instructions and location. compare and classify angles, recognising them as a property of a shape and as a description of a turn. describe location on the full co-ordinate plane. interpret scale maps and create simple scale drawings. Concepts Everyday language can be used to describe the relative position and direction of objects and people (to other objects and people). Position can be viewed from various vantage points. Non-standard units can be useful to give more accurate directions for movement. Simple maps and/ or drawings can be used to track the movement of objects. More formal language can help us describe position and direction more precisely, e.g. the language of the compass points. The location of objects can be portrayed on a map, with/without a grid system. A grid system of horizontal and vertical lines, labelled with letters and numbers, can be laid over a map and used to identify locations. When drawing maps of locations, it is necessary to think about the relative size and position of key features. Directions and locations can be described with increasing precision, using more formal measures of distance and direction (60 km east) and simple grid reference co-ordinates (A6). There are different ways to think about angles, including: • angles as the corners of 2-D shapes • angles as a measure of turn. There are 360 degrees in a full turn. The extent of a turn is measured in degrees. Half of a full turn (180 degrees) and quarter of a full turn (90 degrees) are used to classify angles. Approximate distances can be calculated by considering the distance represented by each cell of the grid. An exact location on a map can be described and found using co-ordinates. Distances on maps and some plans can be determined using a scale. The relationship between angle measures and compass co-ordinates can be used to plot direction accurately. The co-ordinate plane has a horizontal x-axis and a vertical y-axis. Co-ordinates identify the location of a point. They consist of pairs of numbers, which indicates the distance along the x-axis and the y-axis respectively. Progression Continuum Click on the image to access the progression continuum for the strand unit of 'Spatial awareness and location'
