When Year 3 and 4 pupils at Marlpool Junior School started learning about geography, one forward thinking teacher came up with a great idea to really bring the topic to life.

The children are learning about many different countries through the adventures of a snail who travels the world on the tail of a whale. When the snail arrived in Brazil, things got really interesting.

The children started the day with a tour guide who showed them many of the famous sights of Brazil, including Sugarloaf Mountain, the Amazon River and the Rainforest . They were then treated to a Brazilian style buffet breakfast before finding out more about Brazilian animals and learning some Portugese words.

But then to make this all really come to life, teachers arranged for a live link up with a class of children in Sao Paulo through the classroom laptop, projected onto the interactive whiteboard!

The children had prepared questions they wanted to ask about life in Brazil, and also about the wildlife there. They were particularly amazed when one boy told them about visiting the Amazon Rainforest and seeing a live Jaguar.

The children in Brazil were equally as curious and asked many questions of their own. After the experience the children were buzzing with excitement about all they had learnt:

“This has been the best day ever!”

“I can’t believe we actually just spoke to some children in Brazil. It’s so far away.”

“I can’t believe we can see and speak to people right across the Atlantic.”

“It’s really weird because they look just like us and their classroom is a lot like ours but I thought it would all be different.”

"It’s really weird how much we’ve learnt today about Brazil because it feels like we’ve just been on holiday and having fun but now we know loads.”

After Brazil day was over, the children put all their new found knowledge into letter writing in character as the snail – telling her friends and family all about her travels. The snail herself has been sent to the children in Brazil and they will be chatting via skype again when she arrives.

The school hope to repeat the Brazil experience really soon with a link up to a school in Canada – as this is where the snail travels to next.