Reception Geography Lesson – Journey Sticks

This Reception geography lesson using journey sticks is part of our EYFS Geography Block 1: Street and House Detectives. Children take a short walk around the school grounds, collecting natural objects such as leaves, feathers or small stones to create a journey stick. Back in class, they use their journey sticks to draw a simple map and retell their route, developing early fieldwork skills and geographical vocabulary.

What’s included in this lesson pack

• Road sign cards for outdoor fieldwork (STOP, GO, speed limits, school, river)
• Teacher guidance with vocabulary, misconceptions and assessment ideas
• Ideas for modelling and supporting children with sequencing their journeys

EYFS learning objectives

• Draw information from a simple map
• Explore the natural world and describe what they see, hear and feel outdoors
• Use talk and time connectives to organise ideas and retell events

Teaching tip

Model your own journey stick before the activity, showing how collected items represent parts of a walk. Encourage children to use time connectives such as first, next, and then when retelling their journey. Back in class, use photographs taken during the walk to support sequencing and map-making.

Cross-curricular links

Literacy: retelling journeys with time connectives and adding captions to maps. Maths: using positional language to describe direction and movement.

Explore more

This lesson is from EYFS Geography Block 1 – Street and House Detectives, within our complete primary geography scheme of work for EYFS, KS1 and KS2.