With a year 6 parent’s evening on the horizon, we’ve collated ideas for activities for geography departments to run.

Games using IT for Year 6 Parent Evenings

There is a range of interactive games that can be used to engage potential students and their parents. You could turn these into a competition and award prizes.

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Stop Disasters!
Select one disaster, choose the difficulty then try to reduce the risk associated with the hazards.

Oxfam – Holey-Moley
If a mole dug right through the centre of the Earth, where would it end up? What does the ‘other side’ of the Earth look like? And can you predict what’s opposite where?

Beat the Quake
An interactive multiple choice quiz, the answers to which determine how well prepared a room will be for an earthquake. Requires Flash to play.

The Ocean Game by the LA Times
The sea is rising higher and faster — California could see a jump of more than 9 feet by the end of the century. Flooding and erosion threaten homes. Beaches could vanish. But everyone insists: This is a game that can be won. Objective: You are in charge. Can you save your town within 8 turns?

Activities for year six parent evenings suggested by social media users

Having asked the question “What do you do for year six open evening in your geography department?” geographers on Twitter shared many fantastic ideas. These have been collated below. I hope they prove useful to you!

The Blowfort Scale 
For our year 6 parent’s evening, we purchased a few cheap digital anemometers from Amazon we held a competition involving parents and children blowing into them. Using the readings, we then calculated how windy they were on the Beaufort Scale. – @internetgeog

Bottled Tornadoes
Water spout between the two which looks like a tornado cos of the Lego man. Cheap. Easy. And massive fun for kids and parents..& me alike! Two 2lt bottles, lose the kids, fill one 3/4 full with water…pop in a Lego man. Tape bottles together at neck & see if they can create a water spout – @tavicollegegeog

Food Around the World
Food around the world was a popular activity for Y6 open evenings – @AlisonGeog

Mapping
As you would expect, mapping activities we also very popular activities. A number of variations were shared. These include:

1. Labelling connections to locations around the World;
2. Find your home / where have you travelled from?;
3. OS map of the local area. Get the families to find their favourite place in the area on the map and add a small post-it note with their initials – @MissAllsoppGeo

Twister
I’ve got a continents and oceans twister old ELC game yr 6 love it, as do my helpers – @cazdean2

Finger Twister – Twister, but for your fingers! have to answer a geographical question before they can spin the board – @geogcannon

Earth on a cube
‘Earth on a cube’ cubes – @FHSGeographers

Exploding Volcanoes
Exploding volcanoes  goes down a treat – @FHSGeographers

Lego City 
This Year we built an EDC city complete with informal housing out of Lego. It got a great reception – @lucyheighton

Dressing Up
Make an outfit for some extreme climate – @geogcannon

Modelling
Play-doh Volcanoes – @AlisonGeog

Chopstick challenge
We had a Chinese theme and the children had to compete against their parents.  Kids had big buttons and parents skittles. They loved it. Had a 30-second timer could eat what they won then given a fortune cookie as well – @AlisonGeog

Recycle It 
Sorting rubbish into bins – recyclables, compost & landfill. Done using a timer and running between two tables. Top gets a prize sent out – @bronaghmargaret

Fairtrade chocolate fountain, what’s in the box and how does it relate to geography. Geography twister and make an environment pledge. – @salheap

We did ‘where are shoe from?’ Kids had to take off their shoe and find out where it was made. We then had a map so they could add a lego brick to the country’s pile – an evolving bar chart linked to globalisation. They seemed to really enjoy it.

Competition for the parents – where in the world? Match a photo of a landform to a country.

I always have a life/birth/death map or population counter on the whiteboard.

The ecosystem in a box – use shoe boxes with a hole in the side. Parents and students put their hands in and identify the ecosystem, e.g. sand for deserts, pine cones for taiga etc.

Other ideas

I’m a geographer get me out of here

Run an ‘I’m a geographer get me out of here’ game by buying edible bugs online and using them as a bush tucker trial. Pull together a bank of geographical questions and ask them to the child and parent. If they choose the correct answer they got a sweet, wrong a bug!

Earthquake Proof Buildings

Provide a range of materials that the children and their families can use to create an earthquake-proof building e.g. spaghetti and marshmallows. Use an app on your phone to act as a seismometer. Shake the table increasingly hard to move up through the Richter scale to test their response. The most effective construction over the evening wins a prize.

If you have any other great ideas for year 6 parent’s evening please share in the comments section below.

Anthony Bennett