Essential Information
| Key Stage | Early Years Foundation Stage, Key Stage 1, Key Stage 2 |
|---|---|
| School Subject | History, Literacy |
| Resource Type | Classroom activity |
Stories from the sea: Exploration
Welcome to the exciting world of exploration, full of adventure, danger and strange discoveries - and plenty of fodder for great story-writing.
Get to grips with all the stages of an exploration expedition, from preparing to leave, through the journey, encounters with unfamiliar people and places, to the legacy of exploration.
Stories from the Sea supports teachers to develop children’s skills in writing by inspiring them to explore our local and national maritime past through world-class museum collections of objects, paintings and manuscripts, intriguing stories and unforgettable characters.
Exploration Activities
In these activities apply to join an expedition, create your own new world, describe what you find and write songs to keep your spirits up.
Apply to join an Expedition
Create a new world
Describe an unfamiliar animal
Exploration Songs
Writing about a mystery
Exploration objects and images
Use these objects and images to talk about exploration and inspire writing. Each object has some background information and questions and activities to respond to as well.
Exploration Objects
Museums and Galleries hold incredible objects from around the world. Click on the files below to learn more
Polar People and Explorers
These objects represent both peoples of the Arctic and European Explorers of the Arctic and Antarctica.
Pacific Exploration
The pacific has been an ocean of explorers long before Europeans arrived.
Amazing Objects
These objects come from around the world from a range of different cultures
Explorers booklist
The Ice Trap! Shackleton’s Incredible Expedition by Meredith Hooper
Tom Crean's Rabbit: A True Story from Scott's Last Voyage by Meredith Hooper
Morning Girl by Michael Dorris
Pedro's Journal: A Voyage with Christopher Columbus by Pam Conrad
Explorers Who Got Lost by Diane Sansevere Dreher
Magellan's World by Stuart Waldman
Beyond the Sea of Ice: The Voyages of Henry Hudson by Joan Elizabeth Goodman
Stowaway by Karen Hesse
A Long and Uncertain Journey: The 27,000 Mile Voyage of Vasco de Gama by Joan Goodman
Anacaona: Golden Flower, Haiti, 1490: The Royal Diaries by Edwidge Danticat
Quest by Kathleen Benner Duble
The Sea King: Sir Francis Drake and His Times by Albert Marrin
The World Made New: When the Age of Exploration Happened and How it Changed the World by Marc Aronson and John W. Glenn
Polar Adventures by Paul Dowswell
Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance by Jennifer Armstrong
Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel
Trapped by the Ice!: Shackleton’s Amazing Antarctic Adventure by Michael McCurdy
Explorers links
Twinkl - Arctic explorers role play primary activities
Salariya web books - You wouldn't want to be a polar explorer
TeachIt primary - Explorers project pack
Teachers pet - displays - Famous explorer information posters
Explorers and leaders fact files (National Maritime Museum)
Polar Explorers (polar expedition guiding company)
See other resources packs in Stories from the Sea
Partners and supporters
Stories from the Sea is a partnership between the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and Time and Tide Museum in Great Yarmouth. The resource is funded by Arts Council England’s Museums and Schools programme.
